Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/111

 toward the street entrance by this time. She knew she was safe.

"No, I don't s'pose a cheap skate like yuh ever would have one!" called back the defiant and quite reckless trespasser, conscious of the fact that she was only ten short steps from the open street and that nothing could now stand between her and her freedom.

As she swept through the door she slammed it shut with a force vindictive enough to loosen the paint-checks on its faded panels. Then she hurried down the steps, turned to the right, and once she had rounded the corner was glad to hear the companionable pulse of the city's traffic all about her and the press of the prosaic and every-day Avenue crowd close at her elbows. She pushed her way on through that crowd until she spotted an empty taxicab and promptly signaled its driver.

A minute later she was sitting back in an upholstered seat, humming homeward, sighing with relief as she poised her tired feet well up on the leather-covered railing in front of her. And during that journey she divided her time between powdering her nose and massaging with a gently