She smiled at him. She had a nice smile, glistening white teeth and sparkling eyes. “The water,” she said, lifting her hands, “it makes so much noise. You did not hear me knock, so I come in.”
“One of these days,” Quentin said, pulling on a silk dressing-gown and sliding the towel off, “you’re going to get an unpleasant shock when you walk in like that.”
She shook her head. “This morning I had it—it was not so bad.”
Quentin looked at her severely. “You’re not such a nice little girl as you look. You know too much.”
“It was Mr. Morecombre,” she said, her eyes opening. “He is a beautiful man—yes?”
“Suppose you get me some breakfast, and stop chattering,” Quentin said. “Get me a lotta food, I’m hungry.”
She made a little face. “There is nothing,” she said. “Coffee… yes, but the food … it is all gone.”
Quentin paused, his shaving-brush suspended halfway to his face. “I don’t get it, baby,” he said. “This is a hotel, ain’t it? This is the hotel, ain’t it?”
She smiled again. That smile certainly had a load of come-hither hanging to it. “But the strike,” she explained, “it is the strike. No food for four days. All out of the icebox. Now the ice-box is empty.”
Quentin resumed his shaving. “So I’m going to pay a small fortune to stay in this joint and starve—is that it?”