Adna, hearing the door-bell and Dyckman's entrance, returned to
the living-room from the bathroom, where he had taken refuge. He
stood in the hall now behind the puzzled Dyckman.
There was a dreadful silence for a moment. Jim spoke, shyly:
"Hello, Anita! How are you?"
"Hello, Jim!" Kedzie stammered. "This is--"
"I'm the janitor's wife," said Mrs. Thropp. "My husband had to come
up to see about the worter not running in the bathroom, and I came
along to see Miss--the young lady. She's been awful good to me.
Well, I'll be gettin' along. Good night, miss. Good night, sir."
To save herself, she could not think of Kedzie's screen name.
To save her daughter's future, she disowned her. She pushed past
Dyckman, and silencing the stupefied Adna with a glare, swept him
out through the dining-room into the kitchen.
It amazed Mrs. Thropp to find a kitchen so many flights up-stairs.
The ingenuity of the devices, the step-saving cupboard, the dry
ice-box with its coils of cold-air pipes, the gas-stove, the
electric appliances, were like wonderful new toys to her.
Adna was as comfortable as a cow in a hammock, and she would have
sent him away, but his hat was in the hall and she dared not go for
it. Besides, she wanted to wait long enough to learn the outcome
of Kedzie's adventure with Dyckman.
As soon as he was alone with Kedzie, Jim had taken her into his
arms. She blushed with an unwonted timidity in a new sense of the
forbiddenness of her presence there.
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