She hesitated a moment before the squalor and sordidness of the
hotel entrance, divining the hideousness into which she had
chanced, shuddered and rang the night bell. A colored doorman,
sleeping somewhere in the green-lit hallway, called sleepily:
“Come right in!”
She knocked again and again with insistent, angry knocks, until
he came stumbling and rubbing his eyes to the door. He smelt
horribly of cheap whisky. With his aid she got Dangerfield in and
up-stairs. The watcher grinned knowingly and, rather than enter
into explanations, she hastily thrust a bill into his hand and
dismissed him. Dangerfield on the bed was still unconscious. The
room was tawdry, the carpet in shreds, the gas-fixture bent, and
the blistered furniture covered with cheap, soiled imitation lace.
She locked the door and drew a sofa before it, opened the windows,
and sat down in a rocking-chair, her head racked with weary pains,
watching the drabs and grays as they scurried before the gorgeous
cavalcade of the victorious sun.
All at once Inga awoke with a sense of danger. Dangerfield was
standing at the foot of her chair, or rather the specter of
Dangerfield looked down at her with drawn lips and pasty face, with
twitching nerves. It was late afternoon.