“How dare you talk like that!” she exclaimed. “You shall have your money shortly, but I must have my clothes. I cannot go anywhere without them.”
The woman laughed harshly.
“Look here, my young lady,” she said, “you'll see your box again when I see the color of your money, and not before. And now out you go, please,—out you go! If you're going to make any trouble, Solly will have to show you the way down the steps.”
The woman had opened the door, and a colored servant, half dressed, with a broom in her hand, came slouching down the passage. Beatrice turned and fled out of the greasy, noisome atmosphere, down the wooden, uneven steps, out into the ugly street. She turned toward the nearest elevated as though by instinct, but when she came to the bottom of the stairs she stopped short with a little groan. She knew very well that she had not a nickel to pay the fare. Her pockets were empty. All day she had eaten nothing, and her last coin had gone for the car which had brought her back from Broadway. And here she was on the other side of New York, in the region of low-class lodging houses, with the Bowery between her and Broadway. She had neither the strength nor the courage to walk. With a half-stifled sob she took off her one remaining ornament, a cheap enameled brooch, and entered a pawnbroker's shop close to where she had been standing.
“Will you give me something on this, please?” she asked, desperately.
A man who seemed to be sorting a pile of ready-made coats, paused in his task for a moment, took the ornament into his hand, and threw it contemptuously upon the counter.
“Not worth anything,” he answered.
“But it must be worth something,” Beatrice protested. “I only want a very little.”
Something in her voice compelled the man's attention. He looked at her white face.
“What's the trouble?” he inquired.