They turned in surprise at Hodshon's entrance and rose to greet Charity with the homage due so great a client.
Charity could hardly bespeak them civilly. They took her curtness for snobbery, but it was not. It swept over her that these people were laughing over her most sacred tragedy.
She advanced on the operator and put out her hand for the headpiece he wore. He took it off and rubbed it with his handkerchief, and told her that she must remove her hat and veil.
She came out startlingly white and brilliant from the black. She put the elastic clamp over her head and set the receiver to her ear. Instantly she was assailed by dreadful noises, a jangle of inarticulate sounds like the barking of two dogs.
“I can't hear a word,” she protested.
“They're talkin' too loud,” said the operator. “The only way to beat the dictagraph is to cut the wire or yell.”
“Are they quarreling, then?” Charity asked, almost with pleasure.
“Yes, ma'am. But it's the lady and her maid. They been havin' a terrible scrap about marketin'. He—Mr. Cheever—ain't there yet. They're expectin' him, though.”
Charity felt that she had plumbed the depths of degradation in listening to a quarrel between such a creature and her maid. What must it be to be the maid of such a creature! She was about to snatch away the earpiece when she heard the noise of a door opening. She looked toward the entrance of the room she was in, but the door that opened was in the other room in the other building.
The voices of Zada and her maid stopped jangling, and she heard the most familiar of all voices asking: