and collapse where it was useless to spend money on repairs. Outsiders could still get dinner at the Blackwell for eighty-five cents, which meant that they could really eat for a dollar net; and, as an added lure, the dining-room opened directly upon the sidewalk, the guests being concealed from the view of the wayfarer by a dusty collection of imitation palms and fly-blown rubber plants.
Mrs. Clayton entered the hotel by a side-door and started up a steep flight of oilcloth-covered stairs, beneath which, behind a counter holding a case of cigars, cigarettes, chewing-gum, and “life savers,” lolled a coffee-coloured mulatto girl. The walls had once been decorated to resemble those of an Italian villa, but most of the veneer had fallen off, and the dirt had become so ground into the marble floor that it was no longer possible to discriminate clearly between which squares had once been grey and which white. A door opened from the dining-room broadside upon the counter, and directly opposite a cash register, where the mulatto made change for such of the waiters as had transient customers. “Fifteen off a one-spot, Tilly!” “Gimme a quarter and a nickel, gal. I don’t want to give dat couple no chance to ingratiate me with a dime!”
As a matter of fact, cash transactions were few, most of the guests being permanent fixtures at a weekly rate, and the only transients, descendants of such rural visitors as, visiting the metropolis in the Gilbert and Sullivan era at the height of the Blackwell’s popularity, had not yet learned of its decline and proximate fall. Mrs. Clayton herself had selected it as a place of residence less because of its cheapness than because, since nobody longer knew of its existence, she was completely hidden there. That was her main reason, but there were others of a sentimental and less humiliating character, the chief of these being that she had been living there when she first sprang into fame—in the very room she now occupied. She was, in a way, a tradition associated with the Blackwell’s history, and a coloured enlargement of her as a flaxen-haired Marguerite—salvaged from the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House, had once hung in the dining-room over the imitation palms, whence later on it had been shifted up-stairs to her bedroom. In addition, the Blackwell, while as inexpensive as a boarding-house, had the social advantage of an hotel. “I’m staying at the Blackwell,” sounded much better than “I live at Mrs. Guiness’s,” and almost like “I’m staying at the Ritz.”
The mulatto girl behind the cigar counter nodded to her.
“Good evenin’, Miss Clayton. How you feelin’? We got chicken ’sevenin’. I tole Moses to set off a po’tion of white meat for you.”
“Thank you, Tilly. Would you ask him to bring it up to me in about fifteen minutes?”
“I sho will, Miss Clayton! I sho will!”
The staircase had never seemed so high and narrow as to-night, and her shoes kept slipping on the brass-bound treads. Her proximity to Moira for two whole hours had exhausted her emotionally and physically. She was obliged to lean against the wall for support before attempting to unlock her door, and once inside she sank down weakly on a chair without taking off her hat or turning on the light. The street lamps shone through the grimy windows upon her emaciated figure as she sat with her head in her hands under the portrait of the smiling and buxom Marguerite. A slowly travelling succession of white reflections chased one another across the yellow wallpaper as the surface cars clanged by outside, each drowning for an instant the snapping of the steam radiator beneath the window. Occasionally a crackle of blue flame from the slot between the tracks would illuminate the room and dim the streak of light beneath the door into the hall. For Eileen Clayton the room was as crowded with memories as it was with shadows. This had been her home for ten years. Presently she arose, removed her hat, and threw herself upon the bed.
There was a knock on the door.
“Wait a moment, please!”
Mrs. Clayton got up, snapped on the electric cluster, and went over to the “dressing-table,” as she called the bureau when speaking to the chambermaid. She had no need to ask who was at the door. No one—except the coloured “help” and a certain regular monthly visitor—ever asked for admittance.
“Just a minute!” she added, as, having swiftly arranged her hair, rubbed on a dab of rouge, and powdered her nose and chin, she took a small, shining object from her top drawer, and pressed it to her wrist. Instantly her whole manner changed. “Come in!” she called cheerfully.
Moses Wellington, a very tall negro in a white duck jacket, opened the door with one hand while poising upon the other a japanned tin tray, on which was heaped a mountain of white crockery.
“Evenin’, Miss Clayton. I got a lovely supper to-night fer you!” he said in the coaxing tone one would use to a child.
Mrs. Clayton dragged a small card-table into the centre of the room, and Moses, having placed the tray upon it, brought a chair and adjusted her ceremoniously at the table. Then with a flourish he handed her a napkin and, thrusting his thumb through the round hole in the cover, removed the inverted plate which protected five shrinking oysters from the contamination of the surrounding atmosphere.
Mrs. Clayton examined the oysters.
“I don’t think I’ll take oysters to-night, Moses,” she said. “I’ve eaten so many!”
“You doan’ want no oysters, Miss Clayton!”
“I don’t believe so! Do you know, Moses, I can remember when oysters were regarded as a luxury? People used to go to the Hoffman House and the Broadway Central just on that account.”
“You doan’ say! Soup, Miss Clayton?”
Moses gallantly made another bull’s-eye and removed the target with his thumb, disclosing a thick white paste.
“What kind of soup is it?”
“I kinder guess it’s just soup, Miss Clayton.”
“I don’t believe I want any soup, Moses. I don’t seem to care much for soup any more.”
“Yes, ma’am. I doan’ care so much fer soup mahself. This here soup doan’ seem to have no particular individuality.”
“What else is there?”
Moses’ face showed sudden animation.
“I got a surprise for you, Miss Clayton!”
“Oh, how nice!” she played up bravely to the occasion.
“Chickun! Fried chickun! I kep’ out a nice piece of white meat for you! Dey was a feller asked me for another piece of white, an’ I tole him it was all out!”
“That was thoughtful of you, Moses! I love chicken—particularly the white meat.”
“Course you do, Miss Clayton.”
But after a few mouthfuls she shook her head and pushed away the plate.
“It’s no use, Moses. I can’t eat to-night!”
“Not eben de chickun!”
He gazed at it regretfully.
“No, not even the chicken!”
“Dat’s too bad! Doan’ you want me to leave it here so’s you could eat it in the night if you woke up?”
“I shan’t wake up, Moses. There’s no use wasting it—on
