She walked up the street under the trees, past the houses and lawns all alike to her own, and found her father on their veranda reading the evening paper. She sighed at the sight. “Back, daughter?” he called pleasantly. “Yes.” “Your mother is wondering if you would like steak or liver for dinner. Better tell her.” “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She hurried into her bedroom, threw down her hat and gloves, and herself on the bed to rest silently, and groaned in her soul. To think that it had all come to this!--Never to see him any more!--To see only Barton, and marry him and live in such a street, have four or five children, forget all her youthful companionships--and all to save her face before her parents, and her future. Why must it be? Should it be, really? She choked and stifled. After a little time her mother, hearing her come in, came to the door--thin, practical, affectionate, conventional. “What’s wrong, honey? Aren’t you feeling well to-night? Have you a headache? Let me feel.” Her thin cool fingers crept over her temples and hair. She suggested something to eat or a headache powder right away. “I’m all right, mother. I’m just not feeling well now. Don’t bother. I’ll get up soon. Please don’t.” “Would you rather have liver or steak to-night, dear?” “Oh, anything--nothing--please don’t bother--steak will do--anything”--if only she could get rid of her and be at rest! Her mother looked at her and shook her head sympathetically, then retreated quietly, saying no more. Lying so, she thought and thought--grinding, destroying thoughts about the beauty of the past, the darkness of the future--until able to endure them no longer she got up and, looking distractedly out of the window into the yard and the house next door, stared at her future fixedly. What should she do? What should she really do? There was Mrs. Kessel in her kitchen getting her dinner as usual, just as her own mother was now, and Mr. Kessel out on the front porch in his shirt-sleeves reading the evening paper. Beyond was Mr. Pollard in his yard, cutting the grass. All along Bethune Street were such houses and such people--simple, commonplace souls all--clerks, managers, fairly successful craftsmen, like her father and Barton, excellent in their way but not like Arthur the beloved, the lost--and here was she, perforce, or by decision of necessity, soon to be one of them, in some such street as this no doubt, forever and--. For the moment it choked and stifled her. She decided that she would not. No, no, no! There must be some other way--many ways. She did not have to do this unless she really wished to--would not--only--. Then going to the mirror she looked at her face and smoothed her hair.