Geisha McCoy leaned forward with one of her quick movements and caught
Martha Foote's hand in both her own, "You have! And I don't mean to be
rude when I tell you I haven't felt so much like sleeping in weeks.
Just turn out those lights, will you? And sort of tiptoe out, to give
the effect." Then, as Martha Foote reached the door, "And oh, say! D'you
think she'd sell me those shoes?"
Martha Foote didn't get her dinner that night until almost eight, what
with one thing and another. Still as days go, it wasn't so bad as
Monday; she and Irish Nellie, who had come in to turn down her bed,
agreed on that. The Senate Hotel housekeeper was having her dinner in
her room. Tony, the waiter, had just brought it on and had set it out
for her, a gleaming island of white linen, and dome-shaped metal tops.
Irish Nellie, a privileged person always, waxed conversational as she
folded back the bed covers in a neat triangular wedge.
"Six-eighteen kinda ca'med down, didn't she? High toime, the divil. She
had us jumpin' yist'iddy. I loike t' went off me head wid her, and th'
day girl th' same. Some folks ain't got no feelin', I dunno."
Martha Foote unfolded her napkin with a little tired gesture. "You can't
always judge, Nellie. That woman's got a son who has gone to war, and
she couldn't see her way clear to living without him. She's better now.
I talked to her this evening at six. She said she had a fine afternoon."
"Shure, she ain't the only wan. An' what do you be hearin' from your
boy, Mis' Phut, that's in France?"
"He's well, and happy. His arm's all healed, and he says he'll be in it
again by the time I get his letter."
"Humph," said Irish Nellie. And prepared to leave. She cast an
inquisitive eye over the little table as she made for the
door--inquisitive, but kindly. Her wide Irish nostrils sniffed a
familiar smell. "Well, fur th' land, Mis' Phut! If I was housekeeper
here, an' cud have hothouse strawberries, an' swatebreads undher
glass, an' sparrowgrass, an' chicken, _an'_ ice crame, the way you
can, whiniver yuh loike, I wouldn't be a-eatin' cornbeef an' cabbage.
Not me."
"Oh, yes you would, Nellie," replied Martha Foote, quietly, and spooned
up the thin amber gravy. "Oh, yes you would."