"Glorious Lutie," her thoughts ran, "I'm as weak as a sick cat. If there was ever a girl more terrified, more friendless, more worn-out than I feel at this moment, I'd like to know how she got that way. I want to crawl into that bed and stay there for a week just reveling in the thought that I'm safe. Safe, Glorious Lutie. Safe! Alone with you. And nobody to be afraid of. Our funds are running low of course. I've nothing to pawn except you. But don't be afraid--I'll never pawn you. If we have to go down, we'll go down together and with all sails set. I've got an awful hate and fear on this job-hunting business now. Heaven knows I don't want much money; only enough to live on. I guess I won't try to be a high-class queen of secretaries any longer--or at least for the present. My lay is to lie low for a month or two. I'll rest for a few days. Then I'll go into--what? What, Glorious Lutie, tell me what? I've got it! Domestic service. That's my escape. I've certainly got brains enough to be a second girl and they never could find me tucked away in somebody's house, especially if I never take my afternoons out. Which, believe me, Glorious Lutie, I won't. I'll spend them all with you. Oh, what an idea that is! I'll wait around here for about a week and then I'll tackle one of the domestic service agencies. If I know anything about after-the-war conditions, I'll be snapped up like hot cakes." Keeping her promise to herself, Susannah stayed as much as possible indoors. The landlady consented to give her breakfast, but she would do no more--even that was an accommodation. In gratitude, Susannah took care of her own room. She kept it in spotless order; she even pottered with repairs. With breakfast at home, she had no need to leave the house of mornings. She went without luncheon; and late in the afternoon, before the home-going flood from the offices, she had dinner in a Child's restaurant round the corner. For the rest of the time, she read the landlady's books--few, and mostly cheap. But they included a set of Dickens; and she renewed acquaintance with a novelist whom she loved for himself and who called up memories of her happiest times. But her mood with Dickens was curiously capricious. His deaths and persecutions and poignant tragedies she could no longer endure--they swept her into a gulf of black melancholy. On the second day of her voluntary imprisonment, she glanced through _Bleak House_; stumbled into the wanderings of Little Jo through the streets of London. Suddenly she surprised herself by a fit of hysterical, trembling tears. This explosion cleared her mental airs; but afterward she skipped through Dickens, picking and choosing his humors, his love-passages, his gargantuan feasts in wayside inns. When her eyes grew weary with reading, or when she ran into one of those passages which brought the black cloud, Susannah gazed vacantly out of the window.