"Fairly."
There was quite a walk from the car, across a viaduct, down a flight of steps, and into a steep new street of flimsy-looking apartment houses of the dawning era of vertical homes. But the Harlem River, neat as a canal, flowed within easy view and there was something very scoured about the expression of the just graded street of occasional vacant lots, showing the first break in the continuity of city brick that Lilly's tired eyes had encountered.
"Why, Harry, I've never been away out here before! How nice and clean!"
"Here we are."
They entered one of the tan-brick buildings, "El Dorado" writ in elegant gilt script across the transom. Then up three flights of clean, new, fireproof stairs, Harry inserting his key into one of the two doors that faced the landing.
"Sh-h-h, Harry! Tell her it is just a friend."
Old odors laden with memory rushed to meet her; that pungency which, unaccountably enough, reeks of the cold boiled potato, and which old upholsteries, windowless hallways, and frequent meat stews can generate.
There was a blob of low-pressure gaslight in the hallway, a weak and watery eye burning from a side bracket into the odor so poignant with association. Tony Eli drowned at eighteen. Her father peering behind the dresser. "Where's Lilly?" "Here I am!" Herself hugging up her knees in their stout ribbed stockings, her round gaze on the red-glass globe with the warts blown into it.
There it was, that same glass globe around the puny light; and the hatrack—the one with the seat that opened for rubbers and school bags.
"Gramaw, come out. Here is some one."