Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/76

 a slight qualm of conscience. She was not a hard-hearted woman, but she had been irritated by the girl's apparent gay indifference to her position. She did not realize that it was assumed to hide a depth of depression which she would have been equally at a loss to understand.

Miss Imboden strolled down the street in the bright warm sunshine, resolutely refusing to consider a few morbid suggestions which her exhausted nerves communicated to her brain. She had decided to make a last effort to collect from the editor of an obscure little periodical a few dollars which he had promised her for an accepted manuscript. If he could be induced to advance this money before the publication of the article, it would tide her over a day or two—and who could tell what would happen then? She had no money for car-fare, so she made the hot and weary journey on foot, to be met by disappointment at the end. She had quite forgotten that it was Saturday, and that the office closed at two o'clock on that day. She looked at the barred door with dull resentment. She had built her hopes on the editor