"Very well. Don't let me detain you any longer then."
"You mean you want me to clear out right away—to-day?"
"If you like."
"Suits me, Mis' Drake, suits me." Laura shuffled toward her room, starting to remove her soiled apron as she went, while Carmelita, who had hardly expected her ill-tempered words to be taken literally, sprang up and followed her, offering a whole bouquet of olive branches. But it was no use. Laura was piling her belongings into a battered suitcase. Carmelita preserved her dignity until she had paid the offended Negress what she owed her out of a not too heavily stuffed purse. But when she had watched Laura from the window ambling as fast as her chronically sore feet would allow her in the direction of the elevated station and had stood for a moment in the kitchen doorway surveying the mess of dirty dishes in the sink and the wet mop Laura had abandoned on the floor, with a little discouraged cry she flung herself upon the divan and gave way to tears of self-pity.
The tinkling of the telephone bell checked her. She aroused herself from the couch, brushed her eyes a little and reached listlessly for the 'phone. It was Lucy Hodge, cool and drawling as usual. A few polite banalities and
