"
But her spirits soared no more that day.
XIV
SPERRY had chosen for "Mr. and Mrs. Spenser" the second floor
rear of a house on the south side of West Forty-fifth Street
a few doors off Sixth Avenue. It was furnished as a
sitting-room--elegant in red plush, with oil paintings on the
walls, a fringed red silk-plush dado fastened to the
mantelpiece with bright brass-headed tacks, elaborate
imitation lace throws on the sofa and chairs, and an imposing
piece that might have been a cabinet organ or a pianola or a
roll-top desk but was in fact a comfortable folding bed.
There was a marble stationary washstand behind the
hand-embroidered screen in the corner, near one of the two
windows. Through a deep clothes closet was a small but
satisfactory bathroom.
"And it's warm in winter," said Mrs. Norris, the landlady, to
Susan. "Don't you hate a cold bathroom?"
Susan declared that she did.
"There's only one thing I hate worse," said Mrs. Norris, "and
that's cold coffee."
She had one of those large faces which look bald because the
frame of hair does not begin until unusually far back. At
fifty, when her hair would be thin, Mrs. Norris would be
homely; but at thirty she was handsome in a bold, strong
way. Her hair was always carefully done, her good figure
beautifully corseted. It was said she was not married to Mr.
Norris--because New York likes to believe that people are
living together without being married, because Mr.
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