"I can't forget you, either.... I'm sorry, dear. I wish you had me.... I'd give you anything, Jim—anything. Don't you know it?"
"Yes."
She laid her head on his breast, rested a moment, then lifted it, not looking at him, and turned slowly back into her room.
It was dark when he arrived in New York. The flaring streets of the city seemed horrible to him.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Washington Square seemed to him a little cooler than the streets to the northward; the white arch, the trees, the splash of water made a difference. But beyond, southward, narrow streets and lanes were heavy with the close, hot odours of the slums—a sickening smell of over-ripe fruit piled on push-carts, the reek of raw fish, of sour malt from saloons—a subtler taint of opium from blind alleys where Chinese signs hung from rusting iron balconies.
Through cracks between drawn curtains behind the window of Grismer's basement studio, light glimmered; and when Cleland pulled the bell-wire in the area he could hear the crazy, cracked bell jangling inside.
Grismer came.
For a second he hesitated behind the iron area gate, then recognizing her visitor opened for him.
They shook hands with a pleasant, commonplace word or two of civility, and walked together through the dark, hot passageway into the lighted basement.