XXVI
THE flaring gas jet within shone on Hartmann, in his shirt sleeves, reclining collarless on a bed, while the yellow-haired woman, in a short, vividly green petticoat, but otherwise normally garbed, sat by him twisting her fingers in his hair. Mrs. Dallam, her waist open at the neck, was cold-creaming her throat, while Kuhn was decorating her bared arms with pats of pink powder from a silver-mounted puff. He turned at the small commotion in the doorway.... His jaw dropped, and his glabrous eyes bulged in incredulous dismay. The powder puff fell to the floor; he wet his dry lips with his tongue. “Minna!” he stammered; “Minna!”
The woman in the door had grey hair streaked and soiled with sallow white, and a deeply scored, harsh countenance. Her gnarled hands were tightly clenched, and her tall, spare figure shook from suppressed excitement and emotion. At her back were two men, one unobtrusive, remarkable in his lack of salient feature; the other stolidly, heavily, Semitic.
Hartmann hastily scrambled into an upright position; the woman at his side gave vent to a startled, slight scream, desperately arranging her scant draperies; Mrs. Dallam, with a stony face, continued to rub cold-cream into her throat.
“Now, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann stuttered, “everything can he satisfactorily explained.” The woman he addressed paid not the slightest attention to him, but, advancing into the room, gazed with mingled hatred and curiosity at Mrs. Dallam. The two women stood motionless, tense, oblivious to the others, in their silent, merciless battle. The latter smiled slightly, with coldly-contemptuous lips, at the grotesque figure, the ill-fitting dress upon the wasted body, the hat pinned askew on the thin, time-stained hair, before her. And the other, painfully rigid, worn, brittle, gazed with bitter appraisal at the softly-rounded, graceful figure, the mature youth, that mocked her.
“Minna,” Kuhn reiterated, “come outside, won't you, I want to see you outside. Tell her to go out, Abbie,” he entreated the stolid figure at the door; “it ain't fit for her to be here. I will see you all down stairs.” He laid a shaking hand upon his wife's shoulder. “Come away,” he implored.
But still, unconscious apparently of his presence, she gazed at Mrs. Dallam.
“You gutter piece!” she said finally; “you thief!”
Mrs. Dallam laughed easily. “Steal that!” she exclaimed, indicating Kuhn, “that... beetle! If it's any consolation to you—he hasn't put his hand on me. It makes me ill to be near him. I should be grateful if you'd take him home.”
“That's so, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann interpolated eagerly, “nothing's went on you couldn't witness, nothing.”