"You're Gentiles, ain't it? Well, with _Goyem_ such things ain't so important. I'll show you sometimes the way my Millie left home, complete even to hand-crocheted washrags. Three of us had to sit on her trunk. You'm _Goyem_, not?" "I was reared in the Unitarian Church, if that's what you mean, until--well, I guess until I sort of figured out my own religion for myself." "We're Jews, you know, miss, in case you should have any _richas_." "_Richas?_" "Prejudices against us, like some. My husband has one of the finest cantor voices of any temple in the city." "No, no, Mrs. Neugass. I just love Jewish people. Some of the nicest folks we knew in St. Lo--I ever knew--have been Jews," cried Lilly, with the colossal, the unconscious patronage of race consciousness. It left no welt, however, across the sensibilities of Mrs. Neugass. The centuries had seen to that. She was craven and she was superb in her heritage. "I always say, thank God for whad I am, but it doan' matter to me whad anybody else is, just so she is that with the best she has in her." "Exactly. There--there is something I ought to say to you, Mrs. Neugass. You've made it so difficult, with your kindness, but I--well, I--There are certain conditions I want you to know about. I--Not a--I could only take the room for a few months, Mrs. Neugass, because I--" "Say, doan' I know how it is with students?" "No, no--" "They go home when it comes summer. You doan' got to worry. It ain't like we need it to pay rent with. You got my word it's all righd, Miss--The name, blease--Miss what?" "Par--Parlow. Lilly Parlow." "All righd, Miss Parlow; that makes everything fine." She opened her purse, unfolding a bill. "I'll pay now," she said, calm with sudden decision. "Sa-y, I would have trusted you. But you're like me, I always say money speaks louder than words." "I'll be right back, Mrs. Neugass." "That's good. I'll have out fresh towels. That's one thing I doan' expect from nobody is to stint on towels." And so it came about that at the moment Robert Visigoth was confronted with a sudden gap in his program, Lilly Penny, with almost the week's lodging still to her credit, was tiptoeing through the moldy halls of the house in Forty-fourth Street, her luggage hitting against wall and banisters and a palpitating fear fuddling her haste. At the second flight down she experienced her first and by no means fragrant encounter in these hallways. A door flew open with a rush and, her thin body wrapped in something ornate and flowing that was like a quick sheaf of flame around her, a woman dragged suddenly out to the head of the stairs, by the actual scruff of the neck, the ridiculous figure of a male, his collar--the necktie streaming from it--in his hand.