She threw a terrified glance around the room. It was a glance that encompassed everything, as though she were seeing it all for the first time. It was the look one gives a cherished thing that is about to be snatched away. A luxurious room with its silken bed-covers and rosy hangings. The room of a fastidious luxury-loving woman. Its appointments were as carefully chosen as her gowns. The beds were rich dark walnut, magnificently marked--not at all the walnut of Mrs. Payson's great cumbersome edifice in the old Prairie Avenue house--but exquisite pieces of bijouterie; plump, inviting; beds such as queens have slept in. The reading lamp on the small table between gave just the soothing subdued glow to make one's eleven o'clock printed page a narcotic instead of a stimulant. Beside it a little clock of finest French enamel picked out with platinum ticked almost soundlessly. Terror lay in her eyes as they turned from their contemplation of this to the man who stood before her. "Oh, Henry, can't we hold out just for awhile? This war can't last much longer. Everybody says it'll be over soon--the spring, perhaps--" She who had just spoken to Charley of its endlessness. "It's no use, Belle. No one knows how long it'll last. I hate to give it up. But we've got to, that's all. We might as well face it." "How about Ben Gartz? He promised to take you into the business--that wonderful business." "He didn't promise. He sort of hinted. He didn't mean any harm. He's a big talker, Ben." "But he meant it. I know he did. I know he did." A sudden thought came to her. "How long has it been since he talked to you about--since he last mentioned it to you?" "Oh, it's been three weeks anyway." She calculated quickly. It was three weeks since the Blackstone luncheon when Charley had been so rude to him. She tucked this away in the back of her mind; fenced for time. "Couldn't we sublet? I'd even be willing to rent it furnished, to reliable people." "Furnished? What good would that do? Where would we live?" She had thought of that, too. "We could go to mother's to live for awhile. There's loads of room. We could have the whole third floor, for that matter, until this blows over. Lots of families----" But at that his jaws came together and the lower one jutted out a little in the line she had seen so seldom and yet knew so well. It meant thus far and no farther. "No, Belle. I may be broke, but I'm not that broke--yet. I'll provide a home for my family. Maybe it won't be quite what we're used to; but it'll be of my own providing. When I let you go back to your mother's to live you can know I'm licked, beaten, done. But not until then, understand." She understood. "Well, dear, we'll just have to do the best we can. When do you have to give Leach your answer?" "Within the week, I should say. Yes."