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In despair she returned to the Ritz, where she searched through her trunk for the bill with hopeless and mechanical gestures. It was not there. She had known it would not be there. She gathered every penny together and found that she had fifty-one dollars and thirty cents. Telephoning the office, she asked that her bill be made out up to the following noon—she was too dispirited to think of leaving before then.
She waited in her room, not daring even to send for ice water. Then the phone rang and she heard the room clerk’s voice, cheerful and metallic.
“Miss Bowman?”
“Yes.”
“Your bill, including tonight, is ex-act-ly fifty-one twenty.”
“Fifty-one twenty?” Her voice was trembling.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you very much.”
Breathless, she sat there beside the telephone, too frightened now to cry. She had ten cents left in the world!
XI
Friday. She had scarcely slept. There were dark rings under her eyes, and even a hot bath followed by a cold one failed to arouse her from a despairing lethargy. She had never fully realized what it would mean to be without money in New York; her determination and vitality seemed to have vanished at last with her fifty-dollar bill. There was no help for it now—she must attain her desire today or never.