She had sunk to a seat on the tumbled bed, beside her scattered coins. Her thin hands were locked across her knees; the dirty pink kimona slipped lower from her shoulders at every frequent cough, and her eyes sought those of Mrs. Foote in dumb appeal. Her russet hair fell dully disordered about her hollow cheeks, and the rouge on her lips was purple.
"I'm sorry," pursued Mrs. Foote, who was too used to such incidents greatly to concern herself; "but I've got to make my living like anybody else does."
"I was expectin' some money this evenin'," said Mary.
"Hump!" sniffed the landlady.
"You don't believe that?"
"I don't care, Miss Morton; I can't care."
"But I"—Mary's fingers knotted tighter about her knees—"I was promised it," she lied, "an' I'm dead sure to get it then."
"I've heard that so many times," said Mrs. Foote, "that I knowed it by heart three year' ago."
"I could pawn somethin'," suggested Mary.
The landlady swept the bare room with a critical glance.