They stunned her with their splendors,
their liveried outguards, their elevators clanking like caparisoned
chariot-horses, their conveniences, their rentals--six or eight
thousand dollars a year, unfurnished!--six or seven times her
husband's whole annual earnings. They were beyond the folly of
a dream.
She would have to be content with what one could rent furnished
for twenty-five dollars a month. She would have to be her own
hired girl. She would have to toil in a few cells of a beehive
on a side-street. She would be chauffeuse to a gas-stove only.
She went to the luncheon tryst with a load of forebodings, but
Gilfoyle did not appear. She heard her name paged by a corridor-crier
and was called to the telephone, where her husband's voice told her
that there was a big upset at the office and he dared not leave.
He forgot to be tender in his endearments, and he forgot to explain
to her that he was talking in a crowded office with an impatient
boss waiting for him and a telephone-girl probably listening in.
Kedzie lunched alone, already a business man's wife.
She scoured the town all afternoon, and at last, in desperation,
took the furnished flat she happened to be in when she could go
no farther. She had to sign a year's lease, and pay twenty-five
dollars in advance.
They would live a condensed life there. Even the hall was shared
with another family. The secrets were also to be shared, evidently,
for Kedzie could hear all that went on in the other home--all, all!
But by this time she was so tired that any cranny would have been
welcome.
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