Carefully, as the taxi glided up the avenue, Clancy put the card back in the side compartment of the rather bulky pocketbook. At Forty-fifth Street, the driver turned to the left toward Times Square. She recognized the Times Building from a photograph she had seen. The taxi turned again at the north end of the square, and, a door away, stopped before what seemed to be a row of modiste's shops.
"This is the Napoli, ma'am," the driver said. "The office is up-stairs. Help you with your bag, ma'am?"
"Of course." It was with a quite careless air that she replied.
She climbed the short and narrow flight of stairs that led to the office of the Napoli with as much of an air as is possible for any human to assume mounting stairs.
A fat, jolly-seeming woman sat at a desk perched so that it commanded not merely the long, narrow dining-room but the stairs to the street. Although Clancy didn't know it, the Napoli, the best known theatrical hotel in America, had been made by throwing several old dwelling-houses together.
"A room?" suggested Clancy.
The stout woman nodded pleasantly. Whereupon Clancy paid and tipped her taxi-man. The landlady, Madame Napoli, as Clancy was soon to learn, shoved the register toward her. With a flourish Clancy signed "Florine Ladue." To append the town of Zenith as her residence was too much of an anticlimax after the "Florine Ladue." Portland was a bit more cosmopolitan, and Portland, therefore, appeared on the register.
"You have a trunk?" asked Madame Napoli.
Clancy shook her head.
"Then the terms, for a room by the week, will be fourteen dollars—in advance," said madame.