Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/44



car stopped before a house on Alexander Avenue. The street was very quiet. The atmosphere of the Bronx had never invaded this small street. Here one would find no steps full of gossiping uncorseted Jewesses, no squalling, dirty-faced babies. The quietness of Alexander Avenue demanded quiet, and noisy, ill-bred families who came "looking for rooms" were always repelled by the aloofness of the old brown houses. Here and there a couple stood in a doorway. One did not think this significant on Alexander Avenue, such an air of respectability hung over everything. One felt that the rooming-houses were refined and proper. Perhaps the air of propriety emanated from the shingles of aged doctors whose last patient had died years before.

The two couples left the car, Ted and Eddie without having exchanged a single word. Maude rummaged in her geld mesh bag for a key and rushed up the stoop, her white knees flashing in the darkness as she ran.

"Don't mind the house," she said as she threw the doors open. "Bella hasn't been here to clean since mother went away. You pay a nigger twenty-five dollars a week and you can't get service anyhow."

The others had reached the vestibule now. Maude drew them in and switched on the lights. Cheaply stained stairs rose at the foyer's side in a straight, simple line. Ahead was the living-room—huge, but cluttered even so. Dust lay thick over the piano and chairs. The trays on the smoking-tables had been filled beyond endurance with cigarette stubs, and the carpet around had graciously catered to the overflow. In the corners the pattern of the