7 A.M
`` I 'm not counting on anything or anybody , '' he returned , easily . `` Hilmer is n't the only fish in the sea . '' It was noon before Helen Starratt finished her housework next morning -- an unusually late hour for her , but she had been preoccupied , and her movements slow in consequence . A four-room apartment , with hardwood floors and a vacuum cleaner , was hardly a serious task for a full-grown woman , childless , and with a vigor that reacted perfectly to an ice-cold shower at 7 A.M. . She used to look back occasionally at the contrast her mother 's life had presented . Even with a servant , a three-storied , bay-windowed house had not given Mrs. Somers much leisure for women 's clubs . The Ladies Aid Society and a Christmas festival in the church parlors were about as far along the road of alleged social service as the woman of the last generation had traveled .