IN TROY.
There was an unpretending restaurant opposite the Secor House, where,
just as Marion reached it, a middle-aged man with a delightfully
good-natured look upon his rather plain face was taking down the
shutters.
“Is it too early for me to have some breakfast in your saloon?” she
asked. “If I just had a glass of milk and some bread it would be
enough.”
“We don’t generally serve meals ’fore eight o’clock,” said the man,
looking at her keenly but kindly; “but if that’s all you want, and you
don’t mind takin’ it settin’ up to the counter, why, come in.”
Marion felt quite sure the party were intending to seclude themselves
by day and travel by night, but she knew not how to keep them in sight.
While she was thinking about it as she sat by the counter eating and
only half listening to the talkative saloon-keeper the sound of a blind
thrown back fell on her ear, and, glancing up at the shabby hotel
opposite, she saw the woman we have known as Madame Belotti turning
away from an upper window.
“O, Mr. Jones,” she said, having learned the good-natured
restaurant-keeper’s name from the highly embellished business cards
which filled a tray on the counter, “could I get a room over there in
that hotel, do you think?”
“Of course, if you’ve got the money to pay for it.”
“But I thought may be they wouldn’t take in a very young girl without
any older person with her. They might be afraid I wouldn’t pay, you
know.”
“Secor House folks aint so dreadful particular as the tony hotels,”
said Mr. Jones, “and if you really want to be accommodated over there
I’ll step in myself and speak to the clerk. I know him very well.”
“O, thank you, sir; and would you mind asking for a fourth-story room
for me, and will you please pay for me till to-morrow morning?” and she
handed him her new little purse in which she had put five dollars and
some change.
“All right; you’re very sensible; it will be cheaper than the second or
third story,” said Mr. Jones, marching off on his errand and leaving
Mrs. Jones, who had just come in through a back door, in charge.
He soon came back announcing that he had secured a small room on the
fourth floor and the young lady might go to it as soon as she liked. He
handed her back the purse, remarking that she was too trustful.
“It happens I’m honest,” he said, “but if you go passing it ’round that
way you’ll likely get sorry ’fore you’re glad;” which sentence seemed
to please himself so much that he repeated it several times at short
intervals with many sagacious nods of his gray head, while his wife was
making a little conversation with Marion.
It was a back room, as Mr. Jones had said, and, as nearly as Marion
could tell when a slatternly servant-maid conducted her to it, nearly
opposite the one where the woman had thrown back the blind. There was
an open transom over that door, and as soon as Marion found herself
alone she turned the key, climbed on a chair, and opened the transom
over her own door.
All through the long morning she stood unwearied at her post, balancing
herself on the back of the chair to make herself tall enough, hearing
the sound of voices in the room opposite, but unable to distinguish any
words. Once, indeed, she heard Elfie sobbing softly, and the sound
wrung her heart. The child seemed hard to soothe, but after a time the
sobs gradually ceased, and the listener imagined the little thing had
fallen asleep again.
Soon after there was a knock at the door, and Marion sprang softly from
her chair, and, opening it, found a hall-boy.
“They sent me up to tell you,” he began, as soon as he saw her, “that
the 11:55 train you ordered the carriage for is took off, and you can’t
go till 1:40.”
“I think you have come to the wrong room,” said Marion.
“Number 39, fourth story,” said the boy.
“This is Number 38,” said Marion.
“O, then, I’m on the wrong side,” said the boy. “I aint been here but
one day, and I got turned round. Number 39 must be across the hall.”
He knocked at the opposite door, and Marion, with her door
imperceptibly ajar, saw the hooked-nosed young man, after a moment of
conversation, come out and walk rapidly down the hall with the boy.
He came back in half an hour, and Marion, from the position she had
resumed at the transom, could hear tones of angry disappointment from
the women, to whom he seemed to be telling something. Once she thought
she caught the words:
“It will make us miss the express in New York!”
She felt convinced that they were going on the train the boy spoke of,
but she had no way of telling whether it was a day or night train. The
noon whistles were blowing then, so she would not have to wait long to
find out.
The next two hours were very agitating. One and another of the party
opposite kept leaving their rooms, but as they never all left together
she thought probably they went down to dine.
A waiter brought up a tray with dinner for the sick boy, Marion heard
him say, as he knocked on the door.
At last she heard a distant clock striking three, and knew their 1:40
was a night-train. She ventured then to go over to the restaurant for
her own dinner.
She was hungry enough to long to go into the saloon at the back and
order a comfortable dinner, but she wanted to keep the hotel door in
sight, so she asked good-natured Mrs. Jones, who was now on duty in
place of her husband, if she might have bread and milk at the counter
again, and, receiving permission, took her seat where she could see
every one who went in and out of the Secor House.
Mrs. Jones suggested sandwiches and pie as becoming adjuncts to a
counter lunch, and Marion gladly partook of them and ordered a package
of the former tied up for future needs.
She lingered as long as she could over her lunch, quite enjoying the
company of Mrs. Jones, who asked no questions, but comfortably gave
quite a biography of herself.
It was not an hour when customers were plenty, so there were few
interruptions. Marion felt so desolate and lonely that being with this
nice motherly woman was very cheering, and she felt as safe about
Elfie there, with the window of her room in sight, as she did when in
the hotel; so, seeing Mrs. Jones’s futile efforts to keep the glasses
on her broad nose while she took a few stitches in Mr. Jones’s socks,
she asked permission to take the work out of her hands, and soon found
herself comfortably seated behind the counter on a low chair close by
the large window, with a basket of stockings in her lap, cheerfully
bridging the appalling chasms in Mr. Jones’s neglected gray socks with
blue darning cotton, that being the only color afforded by the basket.
She worked till it was too dark to see the opposite house readily, and,
taking a paper of candy which Mrs. Jones gratefully insisted on giving
her with a kiss, went back to her room on the fourth floor.