“You know New York City?”
“Do I know New York—I who invented it?”
Her start was fortuitous; although not intended to be humorous, won the tribute of a chuckle from him at the head of the narrow monk table.
“Since you know New York, King Satan——”
“Call me Pluto,” suggested he. “It is my friendliest name.”
“King Pluto”—she gave him a smileless nod of agreement—“you doubtless have heard of Harlem flats?”
Again he chuckled. “Some of our best little badger games, jealousies, murders and other such trivial offenses have been conceived and executed in Harlem flats. Eh, old Original? We call them ‘incubators of discontent.’ I have visited a few in person on special occasions, although generally one of the under-demons proves bad enough to start the regular Harlem crimes. The Boulevard des Capucines, Piccadilly, Unter den Linden, the Corso and a narrow street called Wall are more usual haunts of mine, offering, as they do, larger opportunities. But this side-issuance is against the rules. Assume that I am fairly well acquainted with the cubbies of modern cliff-dwellers.”
“They named me ‘Grief to Men,’ yet I have not meant to be. To explain how the cruel title came to be forced upon me, I must begin in a Harlem flat at about my nineteenth year.”
With the tremors of a spent swimmer forced to greater effort against the tide, Dolores breasted her tale. Through that evening’s recital and through those of subsequent evenings, she sought to make of herself a mere entertainer, to remember the “style” demanded, as learned from the border-line literature of the several tongues at her command, to conquer her reluctance and lay bare the facts which had been deemed worthy of so much space in the newspapers of Earth—for sake of those whom indirectly she was protecting, to tell her tale with aptitude as impersonal as though its subject were not herself.
Yet in the telling came moments when her continuity broke, when her desperate attempt was abandoned in something more convincing than “style.” Conquered by emotions which had come with her from the mortal world to this strange beyond—emotions of reverence, of love, of passion, of shame—she would fall silent, unable to proceed. At such times her hands would shield her eyes, while the shudders of a modest spirit would plead for reprieve; her head droop until her breast touched the board; her lips refuse for a space to obey her will to divert.