Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/313

 only, Marjorie thought, as she gazed up at the grimy, gray glass door, the dirty transom, the paint-peeled, rusty iron rail at the side of the blackened, stone steps. The high, narrow, old-fashioned windows were open, and gray, streaked lace curtains wafted in and out.

When Marjorie rang, a sallow, black-haired, lethargic undefinable—perhaps a half-blood Chinese, perhaps a Filipino—opened the door and in carefully articulated syllables said, "Mis-ter Mow-bry may be is in; may be out. I will as-cer-tain." And he did so by retreating to the bottom of the narrow well made by the winding of the stairs and calling, in a volume of voice evidently calculated to reach the top floor, "Mister Mow-bry! For Mis-ter Mow-bry, a young lad-y at the door."

No one replied; at least Gregg did not reply, though several doors opened and Marjorie, watching the undefinable gaze upward, received the distinct impression that persons above were gazing downward. She persuaded the undefinable to climb to Mr. Mowbry's room and when he returned with a negative report, she tempered her disappointment with a certain sense of relief at not having to imagine Gregg at this moment a tenant of a room here; she was glad it was summer when the windows could stand open.

"Here at 9.30. Dear Gregg: Billy found me last night. I think I'm glad," she pencilled on a sheet of paper she had brought. "How soon can I see you? I want to, terribly."

And she wrote her Clearedge Street address, signed "Marjorie," put it in an envelope which she sealed and thrust in a conspicuous place in a wire rack on the wall beside the stairs.