Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/222

 to permit use of the inside hall without entering the front room. There was a door through the partition toward the front and Jen Cordeen, opening this, displayed a clean and attractive room with twin mahogany four-poster beds close together, a woman's dressing table and a man's dressing stand, two wardrobes and two chairs and a bookcase, empty. It had a blue imitation Chinese rug in good condition and heavy, expensive paper on the walls,—a tapestry-like paper of good design with gray herons standing in pale brown grasses. The three windows, all in the front, faced west over the street.

"I have this one double; I have one single—third floor, this side, that used to be a maid's room," Jen Cordeen said, making it plain by her tone that she would not waste time by showing this caller the single room.

"How much is this room?" Marjorie asked.

"Fifteen a week for two. There's a bath," Jen Cordeen half opened the door and displayed it. "Have you got a friend?"

"No."

"I've got a girl who's been waiting for some one to split this room with her. She asked if anybody else came single to let her know. Her name" she hesitated for a fraction of a second, "is Clara Seeley. Looked like a real nice girl; she's demonstrating here this week, she said. You'll find her at the drug store, two blocks that way, one down."

The idea of rooming with a girl to be found here startled Marjorie when first put to her so calmly; but, for the purpose which brought her here, how could she start better than by making a friend at once? What harm, at any rate, in looking at Clara Seeley?

Arranging with Jen Cordeen to "hold" the room