"Well?" she said, her arm immediately flung up to the virago's akimbo and her foot sliding in between the door.
In an agony of anxiety over possible exclusion, Lilly's words came so fast they hardly allowed for the coherence of spacing.
"How do you do, Mrs. McMurtrie? I've returned and I'm fine. I'm so sorry about that—that night and the trouble I must have caused you. Thank you for sending my bag after me. It's a girl. She's the best little thing, Mrs. McMurtrie. Doesn't cry at all. I'll only be wanting her with me for a few days until I can get her placed somewhere near me, so I can spend evenings and Sundays with her. I've such plans! I'm ready to take a position again and forge right ahead. If I might have the old room, Mrs. McMurtrie, I promise you that you won't know she's in the house these few days. It won't mean one thing in the way of extras for you, but I'm willing to pay more. Nothing except a little alcohol stove, and if your little girl could watch her for an hour or two once in a while, when I'm out, I'll pay her, too. Gladly. My bag is at the hospital. I'll send for it—"
"Be saving your breath," cried Mrs. McMurtrie, flinging her gesture upward with a cluck of the fingers. "I wouldn't give that for your yarn! You're a hussy, from the looks of the whole business, and I've a mind to be suing the railroad station for the sending of you to me. You mentioned the husband of your own free will. Your husband! Faith, and not so much as a relation turning up to be with you in your trouble. Husband! You'd better be going and telling that to the Home for Indigent Girls. Your husband! Bah!"
To a door slammed full in her face Lilly stood there for a stunned instant, hugging at her bundle. She would have liked to crumple up, to have felt the earth open and drag her down to a merciful oblivion, but after a while she turned and walked down those steps, fumbling with her free hand for an address she had applied for at the hospital information desk, against possible emergency.
The slip of paper read Nineteenth Street, almost in a straight line from where she stood. It was a morose, lean building, only two windows wide and five stories high, with a porcelain sign above the bell, "ROOMS." A wrinkled pod of a woman opened the door.
"I'm looking for a room for myself alone except for a few days until I get my baby placed—"
"Nothing," answered on the click of a closed door.
With her lips almost ludicrously lifted to stimulate the crescent of a smile, Lilly descended. There were passers-by and one or two of them turned for another glance, and more than ever she kept the smile looped up.
Then she instituted a campaign down one side and up the other of two blocks of Nineteenth Street. Finally there came a whimper from the depths of the blanket, and a light and coughy little cry against and into her heart.