The meaning of Katherine Anne Porter's story Theft

Another terrific early story from Katherine Anne Porter, Theft, is very short - much shorter than Maria Concepcion, on which I posted yesterday, which was like a novel in miniature - a very small slice in time, just a few hours, and a tighter point of view: we follow a woman over the course of a few hours, she's a young single career woman in NYC, has to be in the 20s or 30s, we don't know exactly what she does and it doesn't matter. At the outset she's in the pouring rain with a man - a gallant Spaniard it seems - who's interested in her and wants to escort her home; she's less interested (and kind of high) and separates form him at the subway (elevated, actually) stop, says she's perfectly able to get home by herself - but then meets another male friend passing by chance who gets in a cab with her and they share the ride home - he telling her of the failure and frustration of his life as an artist. At home, a fellow tenant in her building calls her in for a drank and tells of the woes of his theater career; he owes her $ which he tearfully says he can't pay her - and she's watching every penny. As she's in the bathroom, the "janitress" comes into the apartment to check the radiators and when she gets out her purse - no $ in it - is gone. She confronts the woman who first denies the theft, then admits but says she needs to give the purse to her niece - whom she thinks doesn't have the advantages the young woman has: $, beauty, an education. Sow what's actually been stolen, what was lost? We realize, subtly, and then quite suddenly as KAP summarizes the story toward the end in a powerful paragraph, that there are many types of theft: time stealing life from us, realizing that we are losing youth, talent, ideals, chances for love and for connections with others, that you can take precautions against theft of the obvious sort, you can have stolen property returned to you, but there's another kind of theft that is inevitable and irremediable.