"You better beat it," she declared.
Mary flushed.
"What's eatin' you?" she demanded.
"You don't belong here," the woman answered. She made a lofty survey of Mary's finery, and then added: "Goin'?"
Mary's heart sickened, but she stood her ground.
"No," she said, "I ain't."
The floor-manager was passing. The social arbiter turned to him.
"Will," she asked, and her shrill voice seemed to carry over all the room; "what's this place comin' to? Throw that Fourteenth Street woman out o' here!"
This was enough. Mary left the place, and, still aching in every limb, turned through a narrow cross-street to Broadway. Her eyes swam as she lingered before shop-windows in the hope that someone she passed would accost her. Her throat was dry and it hurt her when she hummed into the ears of careless pedestrians. Nobody seemed to heed her. The night was cold, and she shook like a recovering drunkard. She mastered all her strength to speak plainly to a complacent man in a great ulster.
"Hello!" she said, trying to smile. "What's your hurry?"