THE flaring gas jet within shone on Hartmann, in his shirt sleeves,
reclining collarless on a bed, while the yellow-haired woman, in a
short, vividly green petticoat, but otherwise normally garbed, sat by
him twisting her fingers in his hair. Mrs. Dallam, her waist open at the
neck, was cold-creaming her throat, while Kuhn was decorating her bared
arms with pats of pink powder from a silver-mounted puff. He turned at
the small commotion in the doorway.... His jaw dropped, and his glabrous
eyes bulged in incredulous dismay. The powder puff fell to the floor; he
wet his dry lips with his tongue. “Minna!” he stammered; “Minna!”
The woman in the door had grey hair streaked and soiled with sallow
white, and a deeply scored, harsh countenance. Her gnarled hands were
tightly clenched, and her tall, spare figure shook from suppressed
excitement and emotion. At her back were two men, one unobtrusive,
remarkable in his lack of salient feature; the other stolidly, heavily,
Semitic.
Hartmann hastily scrambled into an upright position; the woman at his
side gave vent to a startled, slight scream, desperately arranging
her scant draperies; Mrs. Dallam, with a stony face, continued to rub
cold-cream into her throat.
“Now, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann stuttered, “everything can he satisfactorily
explained.” The woman he addressed paid not the slightest attention
to him, but, advancing into the room, gazed with mingled hatred and
curiosity at Mrs. Dallam. The two women stood motionless, tense,
oblivious to the others, in their silent, merciless battle. The latter
smiled slightly, with coldly-contemptuous lips, at the grotesque figure,
the ill-fitting dress upon the wasted body, the hat pinned askew on the
thin, time-stained hair, before her. And the other, painfully rigid,
worn, brittle, gazed with bitter appraisal at the softly-rounded,
graceful figure, the mature youth, that mocked her.
“Minna,” Kuhn reiterated, “come outside, won't you, I want to see you
outside. Tell her to go out, Abbie,” he entreated the stolid figure
at the door; “it ain't fit for her to be here. I will see you all down
stairs.” He laid a shaking hand upon his wife's shoulder. “Come away,”
he implored.
But still, unconscious apparently of his presence, she gazed at Mrs.
Dallam.
“You gutter piece!” she said finally; “you thief!”
Mrs. Dallam laughed easily. “Steal that!” she exclaimed, indicating
Kuhn, “that... beetle! If it's any consolation to you--he hasn't put
his hand on me. It makes me ill to be near him. I should be grateful if
you'd take him home.”
“That's so, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann interpolated eagerly, “nothing's went
on you couldn't witness, nothing.”
Tears stole slowly over the inequalities of Mrs. Kuhn's countenance.
She trembled so violently that the man called Abbie stepped forward
and supported her. Now tears streamed copiously over Kuhn's narrow
countenance. “Oh, Minna!” he cried, “_can_ I go home with you? can I go
_now?_ These people don't mean anything to me, not like you do.--I get
crazy at times, and gotta have excitement; I hate it,” he declared;
“but I can't somehow stand out against it. But you must give me another
try.... Why, I'd be nothing in the world without you; I'd go down to
hell alive without you, Minna.”
Mrs. Kuhn became unmanageable; she uttered a series of short, gasping
cries, and wilted into the arm about her. “Take her out, Abbie,” Kuhn
entreated, “take her out of this.” Anthony, with the tray still balanced
in his grasp, stood aside. The man without characteristics was making
rapid notes in an unostentatious wallet. Then Mrs. Kuhn, supported and
followed by her husband and the third, disappeared into the hall.
“Shut the door,” Hartmann commanded sharply; “and give me a drink.”
Anthony set the tray on a table. “God!” the yellow-haired woman
ejaculated, “me too.” Mrs. Dallam returned to the mirror, and surveyed
the effects of the cold cream. With an expression of distaste she
brushed the marks of the powder from her arm. “The beetle!” she
repeated.
“Minna Kuhn won't bring action,” Hartmann declared, with growing
confidence; “she'll take him back; nothing will come out.” The other
woman drank deeply, a purplish flush mantelled her full countenance.
A strand of metallic hair slipped over her eyes. “Let her talk,” she
asseverated; “we're bohemians.” She clasped Hartmann to her ample bosom.
Mrs. Dallam moved to the half opened door to the room beyond. “Bring in
the pitcher of water, Anthony,” she directed. He followed her with the
water, and she bolted the door behind them. The door to the hall was
closed too. She stopped and smiled at him with narrowed, enigmatic eyes.
The subtle force of her being swept tingling over him. She laid her
hand, warm, palpitatingly alive, upon his.
“The swine,” she said; “how did we get into this, you and I?”