She leaned out on her folded arms till the flare of sunset blazed on the westward windows, then sank through a burning decline into grayness and the night. The fiery windows grew blank and chains of lamps marked the lines of the streets. Then she turned back to the room, dark behind her, yawning like a cavern. She lighted the lights and sat in a stiff-backed rocking-chair, the hard white radiance beating on her from a cluster of electric bulbs close against the ceiling as if they had been shot up there by an explosion. It was half-past six, but she did not feel at all hungry. She felt--with a smothered exclamation she jumped up, ran to the telephone and ordered her dinner.
At eight o'clock Mayer's voice on the phone brought back a slight, faint echo of the thrill. What he said was matter-of-fact and colorless--he had warned her that it would be--just if she was comfortable and everything Was all right. She tried to answer it with debonair brevity; show the right spirit, bold and undismayed, of the dauntless woman to the companion of her daring.
Then came the slow undrawing of the night, the noises of the house dying down, car bells and auto horns less frequent in the streets below. The bedroom was at the back of the building, with windows that looked across a paved court to the rear walls of houses. There were lights in many of them, glimpses of bright interiors, people chatting in friendly groups. The sight brought a stabbing memory of the drawing-room at home, and in the dark she undressed and slipped into bed.
But sleep would not come--her mind would not obey her; slipped and slid away from her direction like an animal racing for its goal. At home at this hour the door between her room and Lorry's would be open and they would be calling back and forth to one another as they made ready for bed. They had done that as far back as she could remember, back to the time when there had been a nurse in her room and Lorry had worn her hair in braids. She lay still, almost breathless, her eyes fixed on the yellow oblong of the transom, recalling Lorry in those days, in stiff white skirts and a wide silk sash, very grave, a little woman even then. She groaned and turned over in the bed, digging her head into the pillow and closing her eyes.