“Your week being up to-day, there’ll be no refund. Your trunk not yet having come, it won’t take you long to pack and go.”
“Go? Go where?” Dolores asked.
The reply, although characteristically and participially indirect, was clear. “Being raised decent myself and with God’s help running a decent house, it’s not for me to say more than that out you’re going, bag and baggage.”
Had some one from the lingerie shop acquainted the lady of the house with the news of the fiasco of yesterday—perhaps Vincent Seff himself? Did he mean to discredit her further—to hound her with advances or reproach?
The possibility determined her against any attempt at explanation or appeal. Beyond this decision she had not time to think until she found herself seated in a one-arm chair of a self-service restaurant. Beside her stood the alligator bag. In her palm lay the residue of her recent wealth, two quarters; a substantial surplus, however, as compared with the solitary nickel expended for the nectarine that had decided her engagement only one week before.
Coffee and crullers—a delicious breakfast when sweetened with the thought that she was released from her hideous bondage, the thought that she was free! With the weak brew came strong thoughts.
Why had she discounted her heritage of education? Why consider work in factories or shops when she spoke three languages and read in five? Surely Trevor Trent, acknowledged a brilliant translator by his severest critics, had not shunted his latter-day work upon her shoulders for naught! She would look higher for employment; would climb to a place where morals were disciplined by minds.
She was sipping from the thick cup the last thin drop. A chunky man, in rising from the next chair, dropped his newspaper on the floor. Of such figure that he might not recover it without inconvenience, he stepped upon and over it. Dolores picked it up and called to him. But either he was through with it, or did not wish to concede his lack of equipoise. Despite the waddle with which he went out the door, Dolores regarded him as a god—the paper his gift. She began to turn its pages in search of the “Help Wanted” columns.
As chanced, she did not read the close-print pleas. A picture on the last page distracted her—a bold, drawn-from-life sketch of herself which was its own indictment of the flimsy garb in which she was portrayed.
Dolores’ pleasure in the crullers receded into the distant past. Gone were the strong thoughts sipped from the weak brew. Of what use to look higher when placarded as so low? Any one might recognize her now. With her paper napkin she brushed away the mist that had gathered before her eyes and bent to the type which surrounded the cut.