href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@36355@[email protected]#page348" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">348
"Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump."392
She was hovering before the fatal window424

THE SALAMANDER

CHAPTER I

The day was Thursday; the month, October, rushing to its close; and the battered alarm-clock on the red mantel stood at precisely one o'clock. The room was enormous, high and generally dim, the third floor front of Miss Pim's boarding-house on lower Madison Avenue. Of its four windows, two, those at the side, had been blinded by the uprising of an ugly brick wall, which seemed to impend over the room, crowding into it, depriving it of air. The two windows fronting on the avenue let in two shafts of oblique sunlight. The musty violet paper on the walls, blistered in spots, was capped by a frieze of atrocious pink and blue roses. The window-shades, which had been pulled down to shut out the view of the wall, failed to reach the bottom. The curtain-rods were distorted, the globes on the gas fixtures bitten and smoked. At the back, an alcove held a small bed, concealed under a covering of painted eastern material. An elongated gilt mirror, twelve feet in height, leaned against the corner. Trunks were scattered about, two open and newly ransacked. A folding-bed transformed into a couch, heaped with cushions, was between the blind windows: opposite, a ponderous rococo dressing-table, the mirror stuffed with visiting-cards, photographs and mementoes. Half a dozen vases of flowers—brilliant chrysanthemums, heavily scented violets, American Beauty roses, slender and nodding—fought bravely against the pervading dinginess. On the large central table stood a basket of champagne, newly arrived, a case of assorted perfumes, a box of white evening gloves and two five-pound boxes of candy in fancy baskets.

Before the mirrored dressing-table, tiptoe on a trunk, a slender girlish figure was studying solicitously the effect of gold stockings and low russet shoes with buckles of green enamel. She was in a short skirt and Russian blouse, rich and velvety in material, of a creamy rose-gold luster. The sunlight which struck at her ankles seemed to rise about her body, suffusing it with the glow of joy and youth. The neck was bare; the low, broad, rolling silk collar, which followed the graceful lines of the shoulders beneath, was softened by a full trailing bow of black silk at the throat. A mass of tumbling, tomboy, golden hair, breaking in luxuriant tangles over the clear temples, crowned the head with a garland. Just past twenty-two, her figure was the figure of eighteen, by every descending line, even to the little ankles and feet, finely molded.

She had elected to call herself, according to the custom of the Salamanders, Doré Baxter. The two names, incongruously opposed, were like the past and the present of her wandering history: the first, brilliant, daring, alive with the imperious zest and surprise of youth; the second baldly realistic, bleak, like a distant threatening uprise of mountains.

On the couch, languidly lost among the cushions, Winona Horning (likewise a nom de guerre) was abandoned in lazy attention. In the embrasure of one window, camped tailor fashion in a large armchair, a woman was studying a rôle, beating time with one finger, mumbling occasionally:

Snyder—she called herself Miss, but passed for being divorced—was not of the fraternity of the Salamanders. Doré Baxter had found her in ill health, out of a position, discouraged and desperate; and in a characteristic impulse, against all remonstrances, had opened her room to her until better days. The other Salamanders did not notice her presence or admit her equality. She seemed not to perceive their hostility, never joining in their conversation, going and coming silently.

The sharp shaft of the sun, bearing down like a spot-light, brought into half relief the mature lines of the body and the agreeable, if serious, features. The brown head, with a defiance of coquetry, was simply dressed, braided about with stiff rapid coils. The dress was black, the waist unrelieved—the costume of the woman who works. What made the effect seem all the more severe was that there was more than a trace of beauty in the face and form—a prettiness evidently disdained and repressed. One shoe, projecting into the light, was noticeably worn at the heel.

All at once, without turning, the girl on the trunk, twisting anxiously before the mirror, exclaimed:

"Winona, what do you really think?"

"It doesn't show from here."

"How can you see from there? Come over nearer!"

Winona Horning, taller, more thoughtful in her movements, rose reluctantly, fixing a strand of jet-black hair which had strayed, and seated herself according to the command of a little finger. Her complexion was very pale against the black of her hair, her eyes were very large, given to violent and sudden contrasts, more intense and more restless than her companion's.

"And now?" said Doré, lifting the glowing skirt the fraction of an inch.

"Still all right."

"Really?"

"Really!"

"And now?"

"Um-m—yes, now it shows!"

On the golden ankle a mischievous streak of white had appeared—a seam outrageously rent.

"Heavens, what a fix! I've just got to wear them!" said Doré, dropping her skirts with a movement of impatience.

"Estelle has a pair—"

"She needs them at three. We can't connect!"

"Bah! Dazzle with the left leg, then, Dodo," replied Winona, giving her her pet name.

Doré accepted the suggestion with a burst of laughter, and springing lightly down, seated herself on the trunk.

"Yes—yes, it can be done," she said presently, after a moment's practising. "If I don't forget!"

"You won't," said Winona, with a smile.

Snyder rose from her seat, and without paying the slightest attention to this serious comedy, crossed the room and returned to her post, bringing a pencil, with which she began eagerly to jot down a few notes.

"Like the effect?" said Doré, leaving the mirror with a last glance, the tip of her tongue appearing a moment through the sharp white rows of teeth, in the abstraction of her gaze.

She turned, and for the first time her eyes raised themselves expectantly. They were of a deep ultramarine blue, an unusual cloudy shade which gave an unexpected accent of perplexity to the fugitive white and pink of the cheek.

"Perfectly dandy, Dodo; but—"

At this moment from the little ante-chamber outside the door came the irritable silvery ring of the telephone.

"See who it is," said Doré quickly. "Remember! you don't know if I'm in—find out first."

As Winona crossed toward the back,