Fay walked by the girl’s side, then fell one step behind her as she led the way through a curtain and down a passage to a kitchen which was illuminated by a single wall cluster.
He stood erect on the well-scoured tiling and glanced about with amazement. There was everything in the culinary art within the four white walls. A wine box showed with its drip pan. A row of many shaped glasses, arranged in half-dozens, stretched along two shelves. A cocktail-shaker hung on a hook. A recess above the glasses was filled with dark bottles whose seals spoke of price and age.
Bins, drawers, an electric-stove, half-barrels, china with a tiny gold crest, knives and silverware, were at the further end of the kitchen. A door was set in the wall, through which the servants passed. Fay eyed this door as he asked:
“Who paid for all this?�
“Jealous?� asked the girl, as she placed a pot on the stove and snapped on a switch.
“Who paid for it?� he repeated hotly.
Saidee Isaacs wheeled and came toward him. Her eyes were no longer the inscrutable pools of dark brown. They flashed and drove him back toward the wall.
“Who paid for it? I did!� she exclaimed. “How do you think I got it? By wiles or guiles or knavery?
By lowering myself to a moll-buzzer or a store hister? No, and you know it! I earned it, Chester Fay!�
“In five years?�