"That's what you get for interfering," she jeered, so angry with her hostess for this forced inspection of her source of income that she was ready to sacrifice the comforts of her extended visit to have the satisfaction of airing her resentment.
"Poor soul!" said Geneviève. "Thirty a month!" Her eyes ran over the rows of crowded shacks. "The owners must get together and do something here," she said. "These conditions are simply vile."
"It's probably all these people are used to," Alys snapped, "And, besides, if they went further into town it'd cost them the trolley both ways, and all the time lost. It's the location they pay for. Mr. Alien told me not two months ago he thought rents could be raised."
"If you all co-operate," Genevieve continued her own line of thought, "you could at least clean the place and make it safe to live in, even if they haven't any comforts."
Her face brightened. Around the corner came the strong, solid figure of Miss Eliot; behind her trotted a bespectacled young man who carried a pigskin envelope under his arm and whose expression was far from happy.
"Hello!" called Miss Eliot. "So you did come. I'm glad of it. Let me present Mr. Glass to you. The department lent him to me for the day. And what do you think of it, now that you can see it?"
"Glad to meet you," said Genevieve, nodding to the health officer. "What do I think of it? What does Mr. Glass think? That's more important. Oh, let me present you—this is Mrs. Brewster-Smith."
Miss Eliot's face showed no surprise, though her eyes twinkled, but Mr. Glass was frankly taken aback.
"Mrs. Brewster—Smith——Brewster—Smith," he stammered. "Oh—er—" he gripped his pigskin folio as if about to search its contents to verify the name. "The—er—the owner?" he inquired.
Alys stiffened. "My dear husband left me this property. I have never before seen it."