Pearl heard the news of Japan's surrender on the radio at the summer place she and Richard had rented on the New Jersey shore, where she went every August to escape from Pennsylvania's heat and the hay fever season. She was working steadily on her next two novels: Portrait of a Marriage, another American book, which appeared in December, 1945; and Pavilion of Women, set in China, which John Day held over to 1946.

By a predictable but frustrating irony, the end of the war brought a financial crisis to the East and West Association and to the Walshes' magazine, Asia and the Americas. With the defeat of Japan, Asia was no longer news, and American interest in the region rapidly subsided. Gordon Halstead, hired in January as East and West's executive director, was gone by May, the victim of money troubles and of his disagreements with Pearl. He followed Margaret Valiant, who was deemed unsuitable by Pearl and removed from the Theatre Project. In June, the association's treasurer, Charles Pharis, threatened to resign when Pearl brusquely ignored his advice about dealing with the budget deficit that was threatening to close the organization down.

By August, Pearl's desperation over money and staff problems led her to submit her own resignation. She was surprised and rather humiliated when the board seemed at first inclined to accept; after she made it clear that the gesture had been intended symbolically, she was persuaded to stay on.