“Mrs. Dart, I beg your pardon. I ’ve been wasting your time. I ’ve intruded on—”
“Not at all,” she interrupted, with formal politeness. “I ’m glad to have met you. I don’t rent rooms, of course. This is a private residence. My son and his wife live here with me, and we rent our top floor to some young men—business men—who are friends of my son’s. But—”
Babbing was not listening. He looked around him as if he were rather lost. “Across the— But that’s the north side, isn’t it? And I particularly wanted a back room that would be sunny.” He appealed to her in a manner of bewildered helplessness.
“Mr. Cook—” She hesitated—“I don’t know who the gentleman is who has referred you to that house, but I do know—”
He broke in, uneasily: “Wallbridge? He ’s a stock broker, m’am. I don’t know him very well, except in a business way.”
She nodded several times, compressing her lips.
