CHAPTER XXVI
IT was not yet ten o’clock when Eris arrived at Jane Street. Gutters stank; the heated darkness reeked with the stench of stables, slops, and unwashed human bodies.
Sidewalks still swarmed; tenements had muted and disgorged; every alley spewed women and men in every stage of undress. Fat females with babies at breasts squatted beside dirty doorsteps; dishevelled hags hung out of open windows, frowsy men sprawled on chairs, or nude to the trousers, looked down from rusting fire-escapes at a screaming tumult of half-naked children shouting and dancing in the cataract of spray from a hose which two firemen had opened on them from a hydrant.
Flares burning redly on push-carts threw smoky glares here and there as far as Greenwich Avenue, where the light-smeared darkness was turbulent with human herd.
Into this dissonance and clamour, clothed in silk, came Eris, daughter of Discord. As in a walking dream she descended from her taxi; fumbled in her silken reticule to find the fare; paid, scarcely knowing what she was paying.
As she turned and ascended the low steps of her house, still searching about in the reticule for her latch-key, she became aware that a man was standing in the vestibule.
When she found her latch-key she glanced up at the shadowy shape.
Then the man uttered her name.
Instantly his voice awoke in her ears that alarming echo which sometimes haunted her dreams. And though the man’s features were only a grey blur in the obscurity, she knew him absolutely.
For an instant all her strength seemed to leave her body, and she sagged a little, sideways, resting against the vestibule wall.