The attack was so unexpected that I actually stuttered. When I asked why she had made such a guess she replied indifferently:
“Only a professional social investigator or a writer could be so ignorant and at the same time so cock-sure. You are not a social investigator. At least I never saw one whose shoes were so clean this late in the week.”
On my making a full confession her interest was aroused. When she was convinced that Alice and I purposed to live on our earnings she turned her catalogue of rooms over to me. Selecting twenty of what appeared to me to be the most desirable addresses I set out.
It was after three o’clock when the door at the last address on my list closed behind me. The cheapest room I had seen was three dollars and a half a week. Its only window opened on a shaft and there was no heat of any sort. In an effort to bolster up my flagging spirits I became defiantly independent.
Why confine myself to the Y. W. C. A. list? I had passed a number of attractive-looking houses with the sign “furnished rooms” out. Why not investigate them? Alice and I were both old enough, had sufficient experience and judgment, to see if anything was amiss.
Just off one of the most beautiful squares in New York I came upon an unusually attractive-looking house with a furnished-room sign out. Even the sign itself was neater and more cheerful-appearing than any that had previously attracted my attention. The door was opened by the landlady. It was a charming room—on the second floor with a huge bay window—that overlooked a well-kept back yard. The bathroom was on the same floor, and in a little private hall just outside the door of the room there was a gas-stove with two burners.
On learning that the rent was three dollars the week, including gas for cooking, I opened my pocketbook to pay a week advance.
Quickly turning toward the door from which direction the call appeared to come, I as quickly remembered that my mother had been in her grave more than fourteen years. Without thought, moved entirely by instinct, I slipped by the woman and out of the room. Halting on the stairs between her and the door I explained that it seemed to me wiser to consult Alice before definitely deciding.