"Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, 'he's my father, madam!' F' that matter, that thing there is my husband!"
The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He burbled, "Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 7 has been made up since Bill left—if 'tain't, the sheets ain't been slept on but one night."
"Where d' you come——"
"Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms."
The woman turned on her husband. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one side above the gums. "Pete, if I hear one word more out of you, out you go. Lady! Huh! Where d' you come from, young woman?"
Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but the woman hurled:
"Wherdjuhcomfromised!"
"From New York. Is there another hotel——"
"Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra."
The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but—— Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't!