The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

It was the end of October. The trees in the parks and along the Palisades were bare, but the sun still shone and children danced in the streets to the music of the hurdy-gurdies. On Fifth Avenue, women in costly furs drove from shop to shop, buying greedily. Starved through their long summer with the mountains and the sea, they bought laces and jewels and still more costly furs. Down in the restaurants of the foreign quarters, the proprietors had taken in the little tables and dismantled the artificial gardens. The husbands of the women in costly furs now dined at home or in their uptown clubs.

Everywhere people settled to their winter's work. The strikers and manufacturers were locked in a death grip, and Jean often sat up half the night with Rachael. Rachael was whiter and more flamelike than ever. She never mentioned Tom, but Jean knew that he had married a girl of his own faith and that Rachael knew.