Marie Louise did not go to the desk. She could take a hint at second hand. She would have been glad of a place to sit down, but all the divans were filled with gossipers very much at home and somewhat contemptuous of the vulgar herd trying to break into their select and long-established circle. She heard a man saying, with amiable anger: “Ah’m mahty sah’y Ah can’t put you up at ouah haouse, but we’ve got ’em hangin’ on the hat-rack 94 in the hall. You infunnal patriots have simply ruined this little old taown.”
She heard a pleasant laugh. “Don’t worry. I’ll get along somehow.”
She glanced aside and saw That Man again. She had forgotten his name again; yet she felt curiously less lonely, not nearly so hopeless. The other man said:
“Say, Davidge, are you daown heah looking for one of these dollah-a-yeah jobs? Can you earn it?”
“I’m not looking for a job. I’m looking for a bed.”
“Not a chance. The government’s taken ovah half the hotels for office-buildings.”
“I’ll go to a Turkish bath, then.”
“Good Lawd! man, I hud a man propose that, and the hotel clerk said he had telephoned the Tukkish bath, and a man theah said: ‘For God’s sake don’t send anybody else heah! We’ve got five hundred cots full naow.’”
“There’s Baltimore.”
“Baltimer’s full up. So’s Alexandra. Go on back home and write a letta.”