Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ TILLY slept late the next morning. She crawled out into her cold room and put a handful of coal in the tile stove, lighting it with kindlings the size of matches and a bit of paper. Then she went back to bed until the fire should make an impression on the temperature of the cold room, and sitting up, with her ulster around her shoulders, she examined her feet.
They were covered with scratches from the rose thorns of the night before, and one toe had been badly cut by glass. Not only that, but a streak of red ran from the toe up to the arch of Tilly's foot. Tilly looked at it in dismay. ”

“ Laughter and music, and the rhythm of dancing feet, came through doors that opened and shut. In the night city, no one is curious: each is intent on his own affairs. And so, undisturbed, Sullivan let Tilly cry out her tortured young soul on his shoulder. ”

“ Their athletic dancing received scant applause. The crowd, stimulated to the highest point, desired an appeal to its senses, roused with wine. In some of the boxes men sat with their arms around the shoulders of the women. The leader of the orchestra was waiting, his eyes on Tilly. Behind the musicians, near a pillar, she could see Weininger, his heavy black brows drawn together, watching her. Tilly padded down the steps in her bare feet and stood with her arms poised, waiting for the music. ”

“ If she had pleased Weininger last night, he would have looked after her until her foot got better. And now here she was, far from home—Tilly was vague about how far she was from home, but it was far enough—and out of a job. Why? Because a man she would never see again—and she wished to heaven she'd never laid eyes on him—had smiled at her across the Bal Tabarin.
Tilly's egg cooked quite hard and her coffee, put down with a slam outside her door, grew cold, while she sat there, hating the young man. Why shouldn't a girl dance in her bare legs? ”

“ HE WATCHED with more eagerness than he would have cared to admit for Tilly. With the informality of the cabaret, the performers lounged around the doorways or mixed with the crowd. At a table in the corner three English girls, who did a clog dance and sang an English music-hall song or two, sat talking together, One of them was crocheting: one, a thin girl, wore a woolen shawl over her shoulders and coughed steadily. Their costumes were dirty: their eyes hard and calculating. ”

“ Although it was after two in the morning, the portier brought some hot soup, and Sullivan, drawing up a chair, fed her by spoonfuls.
Tilly lay back with closed eyes and open, childish mouth. When the soup was done, she looked at Sullivan gratefully.
"I didn't know there were men like you in the world." She held out her hand to him, and he took it between both of his.
"I thought all men were rotters," she said, sighing happily. "You—you're the best man I have ever known." Sullivan flushed uncomfortably. ”

“ As a gong announced five minutes before the hour the crowd, tired of the decorum of the tables, surged toward the boxes, where women sat, smothered in flowers—fair women and dark, aigrettes and jewels, gleaming flesh and cool, amused eyes. Behind their white shoulders men lounged, men in court dress or uniform with medals of honor on their breasts. ”

“ Once she saw the woman who had worn the bandeau the night before. She was in ermine from head to foot, hat, muff, and long coat. Pinned to her muff was a great cluster of fresh violets. Tilly's contemptuous smile was a bit tremulous. She had nothing to eat, of course, and her foot was hurting more—she hoped it was only the cold.
At dusk an officer in uniform, sauntering by, stopped and looked at her. Then he said something in German; Tilly was glad she did not understand. ”

“ Her sensuous dancing pleased the crowd; as she ceased, smiling, with a flash of dark eyes and white teeth, a tipsy officer in uniform presented her with a glass of champagne.
The wild Hungarian music rioted. The musicians, in red coats, with swarthy faces, played furiously. With the near approach of midnight a frenzy seized the crowd. The merriment of the carnival was giving place to something less innocent. A man in a loge drank from a woman's slipper. ”

“ In Tilly's business, feet are of primary importance, meaning, as they do, clothing to wear, a shelter over one's head, and pension, at say thirty kronen—or six dollars a week. Not that Tilly's pension was worth that sum, but Tilly's occupation being precarious as well as dubious, and times being hard, as they always are in Austria, she paid the usual percentage of her youth, inexperience, and friendlessness. ”

“ THE flowers and her bad foot, and not having had her coffee yet, which is enough to make the strongest soul pallid, got rather on her nerves. She put the egg inside the stove to cook, and then she sat down, with her ulster over her nightgown, and looked the said pallid soul in the face. ”