As I stared about me my eye was once more arrested by the magic notice "Rooms," though this time with the qualifying phrase, "for gentlemen." Rooms for gentlemen! The limitation seemed to fit my needs. It implied selection and a social standard.
The house, too, was that oasis in New York, an old-time dwelling in gray-painted brick which progress has not yet swept away. Standing where Wapping Street and Theodora Place ran together at a sharp angle, it was shaped like a sadiron or a ship's prow. The tip of the ground floor was given over to a provision dealer, while a barber occupied the long slit in the rear. Between the two shops a door on the level of the pavement of Theodora Place gave on a little inset flight of steps which led up to the actual entrance. The vestibule was shabby, but, moved by my experience in the early part of the afternoon, I observed that it was clean.
The woman who answered my ring was not only clean, but neatly dressed in what I suppose was a print stuff, and not only neatly dressed, but marked with a faded prettiness. What I chiefly noticed for the minute was a pair of those enormous doll-blue eyes on a level with the face, as the French say, à fluer de fête, which make the expression sweet and vacuous. In her case it was resignedly mournful, as if mournfulness was a part of her aim in life. A single gas-jet flickered behind her, showing part of a hallway in which the same walnut furniture must have stood for so many years that it was now groggy on its feet. To my question about a room she replied with a sweet, sad, "Won't you step in?" which was tantamount to a welcome.
The floor of the hallway was covered with an oilcloth or linoleum which had once simulated a terra-cotta tiling, and was now but one remove from dust. On a mud-brown wall a steel-engraving of a scow, with Age at the helm, and Youth peering off at the bow, sagged at an angle which produced a cubist effect in its relation to the groggy-footed hat-rack. The doors on the left of the hall were closed; on the right a graceful stairway, lighted by a tall window looking out on Theodora Place, curved upward to the floor above.
At the sound of voices in the hall one of the closed doors opened, and a second woman, a replica of the first, except for being older, came out and looked inquiringly. She, too, was fadedly pretty; she, too, was mournful; she, too, was saucer-eyed; she, too, was neatly dressed in a print stuff.
"This gentleman is looking for a room," was the explanation, sadly given, of my presence.
The ladies withdrew to the foot of the stairway for a whispered conference. This finished, the elder came back to where I stood on the door-mat.
"We generally ask for references—" she began, with a glance at my sodden appearance.
"If that's essential," I broke in, "I'm afraid it must end matters. I've only recently come over from France, and I'm a total stranger in New York. I rang the bell because I saw the notice and I liked the look of the house."
As it happened, the last was the most tactful thing I could have said, going to the hearts of my hostesses. Something, too, in my voice and choice of words must have appealed to their sense of gentility.