had possessed for her had disappeared, leaving for her recognition a
very old and worn man; she was sorry for her mother with a deep
affection mixed with impatience. At first she had tried to put something
of her own revived spirit in the older woman but it was like pouring
water into a cracked glass: her mother was too utterly broken to hold
any resolution whatever.

Nettie's feeling for Edward Dunsack became an instinctive deep distrust.
It was almost impossible for her to remain when--as he so often did
now--he approached her to talk about the injustice of her mode of life
and the debt Gerrit Ammidon owed her. He would stand with his fingers
twitching, talking in a rapid sharp voice, blinking continuously against
any light brighter than that of a shaded room or dusk. He seldom left the
office or went out through the day; his place at the dinner table was far
more often empty than not. But after their early supper, in the long late
June twilights, he had an inexhaustible desire for her to stroll with
him. She occasionally agreed for the reason that they invariably passed
in the vicinity of Washington Square and Pleasant Street, and saw the
impressive block of the Ammidon mansion. However, they never met any of
its inmates. Once they had walked directly by the entrance; some girls,
perhaps a woman, certainly two men, were grouped in the doorway: it was
growing dark and Nettie couldn't be certain.

Edward Dunsack clearly hesitated before the bricks leading in between the
high white fence posts topped with carved twisting flames; and, in a
sudden agony at the possibility of his stopping, Nettie hurried on, her
cheeks flaming and her heart, she thought, thumping in her throat.

Her uncle followed her. There was a trail of intimate merriment from the
portico, a man's voice mingling gayly with those of the girls. "That was