"I wouldn't have had the courage," I heard Rosa say.
"Why not?" replied Esther. "Her family could do no more than is being done. If they took her home now, she'd never come back again. Her spirit would be broken. That wouldn't be good for her. Besides they don't need her, while I—why, she's the only human being in the world that's ever meant anything in my life, and I am thirty-three. It has been almost like having had a child dependent on me—having had her, giving her a new point of view, taking care of her now."
"Well, but how long can you stand the expense of this private room, and the doctors?"
"You needn't worry about that," Esther shrugged.
"But it seems a shame, Esther," burst out Rosa, "just when your father's estate begins to pay you enough income to live on, and you could devote the best of yourself to your book—it seems a shame not to be able to take advantage of it. You've always said," she went on, "that a woman can't successfully begin to create after she's thirty-five. This will certainly put you behind a while. And the room rent too! Does she know yet that you didn't tell her the truth about the price of the room in Irving Place?"
"No, Ruth doesn't know," replied Esther. "She's very proud about such matters. When she first came she had only an empty trunk, a new job, and a few dollars. Later, when I was going to explain, she lost
