Rose saw what the more experienced members of the company were doing,
and knew that she ought to follow their example; keep after the manager
for her money, hound him, appeal to him, invent fictitious needs, and
then not spend a cent except what was absolutely wrung out of her by
necessity, so that when the crash came, she wouldn't be left penniless.
But she lacked the energy to do it. She was going through a passing
phase of that same melancholy acquiescence in the decrees of Fate, which
had been Olga Larson's permanent characteristic until Rose's own fire
and a turn in the tide of fortune had roused her.
One little sequence of events springing directly from Rodney's visit to
Dubuque, contributed largely to this result. The principal actor in it
was Dolly.
Dolly's manner toward her had altered that very morning in Dubuque,
though Rose, in her preoccupation, didn't mark the change for a day or
two afterward. Then she saw that her frail little roommate had stopped
chattering; that she no longer made nervous little excuses for leaving
her, nor invented transparent little fibs to account for absences.
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