“I thought,” I faltered, “since this is only a temporary—er—stopping place, that I wouldn’t entirely unpack——”
“Within twenty-four hours. You need not unpack entirely. If it is ever necessary for you to get anything out of your trunk while you are here, you may be admitted to the trunk room. Jenkins, 44.”
“When is dinner?” My question trailed between the desk and Jenkins, the elevator man, who miraculously preserved an air of jauntiness as he lounged at the door of his wire cage. I made up my mind to ask him how he did it.
“Going on now.” The elevator slammed upon me, and I was borne aloft to a room of exquisite order and freshness. But either I saw double or there were two white beds, two oak bureaus, two oak wardrobes, two——
“This can’t be my room,” I protested.
“Oh, yes, miss,” declared the maid to whom I had now been delivered. “No more single rooms left. A lovely lady has this one with you. You’ll like her.”
“But I don’t want——”
The chambermaid passed lightly over the question of my desires. The door closed firmly upon my protests, and I proceeded to remove the marks of travel from my clothes and person.
Oh, the Olympian indifference of the lady at the desk to my plea for a room by myself! In two seconds it reduced me from a state of angry protest to one of humble gratitude that I had obtained any shelter at all. Oh, the big dining rooms, with the narrow tables, and women, women, women, packed along them! Oh, the hum of feminine voices, the shrill of feminine laughter, the weariness of feminine faces! Never shall I forget how dreary my own sex seemed to me when I had my first sight of it, massed, unindividualized, hard working, poor, tired. I was suddenly appalled at the number of us in New York—homeless, laboring, impoverished; for to dine at the Maggie Lou was tacit proclamation of all these things.
The food was excellent—plain, homely, plentiful. It was handed dexterously over one’s shoulders and planted firmly and noisily on the table. There was danger in unexpected movements while the waitresses scurried up and down the narrow aisles between the tables, as a young woman opposite me discovered. She leaned forward at a critical moment in her discourse to emphasize the statement that “the fleece-lined cotton were quite as warm as the woolen”; and she jarred the waitress’ busy arm by her vivacity, receiving a stream of yellow squash down her back as penalty.