Moreover, Mr. Fenton had a business engagement at the same hour and would not have been willing to permit Tory to keep her appointment alone.
In the climb up the stairs Dorothy chanced to be in the lead. Now and then she seemed tired and stopped for a moment to rest and get her breath.
The character of the place was not the surprise to Tory that it was to the other girl. In Paris and London Tory had been in old houses converted into lodgings as poor and dark as the present one. She knew that one might open a door and find an apartment artistically furnished and extremely comfortable. Again, one might chance upon a room bare and sordid, if its occupant had been in ill luck and unable to dispose of a picture, a poem, or a play that he had thought he would be pretty sure to sell.
At the end of the third flight of steps suddenly Dorothy sat down. She was biting her lips and had grown so pale that Tory was alarmed.
“Good gracious, Dorothy dear, what is the matter? Can’t you go on? Had we best go back downstairs? Are you about to faint?”
Dorothy shook her head and smiled. It was so like Tory to ask half a dozen questions at once.
“No, nothing so dreadful as fainting. I had a sharp pain in my side and think I had best sit still a little while.”
Dorothy’s color did not grow better. Instead, she became whiter and caught hold of the railing for support, leaning her head against the banister.
The other girl hesitated. Should she continue on up the two additional flights of stairs and ask Mr. Winslow to come to their aid? Certainly Dorothy would to faint if nothing were done to revive her! Yet she really ought not to be left alone at present even for a few moments.
Tory glanced up and down the stairs, hoping some one might be approaching from one or the other direction to whom she could appeal for help.