Life was queer. Queer and cruel.
From the doctor's office, the waiting room lined with patient figures, she went on. She had a very definite plan in mind, but it took all her courage to carry it through. Outside the Benedict Apartments she hesitated, but she went in finally, upheld by sheer determination.
The chair at the telephone desk was empty, but Sam remembered her.
“He's out, miss,” he said. “He's out most all the time now, with the election coming on.”
“What time does he usually get in?”
“Sometimes early, sometimes late,” said Sam, watching her. Everything pertaining to Louis Akers was of supreme interest those days to the Benedict employees. The beating he had received, the coming election, the mysterious young woman who had come but once, and the black days that had followed his return from the St. Elmo—out of such patchwork they were building a small drama of their own. Sam was trying to fit in Edith's visit with the rest.
The Benedict was neither more moral nor less than its kind. An unwritten law kept respectable women away, but the management showed no inclination to interfere where there was no noise or disorder. Employees were supposed to see that no feminine visitors remained after midnight, that was all.
“You might go up and wait for him,” Sam suggested. “That is, if it's important.”
“It's very important.”
He threw open the gate of the elevator hospitably.