Everything exhaled a thick, semi-oriental smell. Dully painted fire-escapes clung hideously to the fronts of the buildings; stagnant-looking men, wearing their hats, leaned from bedroom windows. The once decent hallways were smutted with grimy hands; the wide marble steps were huddled with alien, unclean people.
A splendidly spired church stood almost shoulder to shoulder with the Ashton-Kirk house. Once it had been a place of dignified Episcopal worship; but years of neglect had made it unwholesome and cavern-like; and finally it was given over to a tribe of stolid Lithuanians who stuck a cheaply gilded Greek cross over the door and thronged the street with their wedding and christening processions.
"Perhaps," said Ashton-Kirk, after a moment's study of the prospect, "yes, perhaps it is a hole of a place in which to live. But you see we've had this house since shortly after the Revolution; four generations have been born here. As I have no fashionable wife and I live alone, I am content to stay. Then, the house suits me; everything is arranged to my taste. The environment may not be the most desirable; but, my visitors are seldom of the sort that object to externals."
"Well, you have one just now who is not what you might call partial to such neighborhoods," said Pendleton. "And," looking at his watch, "you will shortly have another who will be, perhaps, still less favorably impressed."
"Ah!" said Ashton-Kirk.
He curled himself up upon the deep window sill while Pendleton went back to his chair and the tobacco.
"It's a lady," resumed Pendleton, the brown paper crackling between his fingers, "a lady of condition, quality and beauty."
"It sounds pleasant enough," smiled the other. "But why is she coming?"
"To consult you—ah—I suppose we might call it—professionally. No, I don't know what it is about; but judging from her manner, it is something of no little consequence."
"She sent you to prepare the way for her, then?"