"Who's likely
to engage you? Why, you've lost your color and your looks and
your weight since you came to stay here. They don't want such as
you in the chorus. And for the rest, you're too high and mighty,
that's my opinion of you. Take what you can get, and how you can
get it, and be thankful,--that's my motto. Day after day you
tramp about the streets with your head in the air, and won't take
this and won't take that, and meanwhile my bill gets bigger and
bigger. Now where have you been to this morning, I should like
to know?"
Beatrice, who was faint and tired, shaking in every limb, tried
to pass out of the room, but her questioner barred the way.
"I have been up town," she answered, nervously.
"Hear of anything?"
Beatrice shook her head.
"Not yet. Please let me go upstairs and lie down. I am tired
and I need to rest."
"And I need my money," Mrs. Selina P. Watkins declared, without
quitting her position, "and it's no good your going up to your
room because the door's locked."
"What do you mean?" Beatrice faltered.
"I mean that I've done with you," the lodging-house keeper
announced. "Your room's locked up and the key's in my pocket,
and the sooner you get out of this, the better I shall be
pleased."
"But my box--my clothes," Beatrice cried.
"I'll keep 'em a week for you," the woman answered. "Bring me
the money by then and you shall have them. If I don't hear
anything of you, they'll go to the auction mart.
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