Mrs. Wylie continued to eye her dubiously. "Well, I have no wish to pry into your affairs. 'Mind your own business,' that's my rule." She spoke with defiance, as if the contrary were being asserted by some invisible person who might appear and gain hearing and belief. She went on: "If Mr. Ellison wants it, why I suppose it's all right. But you can't stay out later'n ten o'clock." "I shan't go out at all of nights," said Susan eagerly. "You _look_ quiet," said Mrs. Wylie, with the air of adding that appearances were rarely other than deceptive. "Oh, I _am_ quiet," declared Susan. It puzzled her, this recurrence of the suggestion of noisiness. "I can't allow much company--none in your room." "There won't be any company." She blushed deeply. "That is, a--a young man from our town--he may call once. But he'll be off for the East right away." Mrs. Wylie reflected on this, Susan the while standing uneasily, dreading lest decision would be against her. Finally Mrs. Wylie said: "Robert says you want the five-dollar room. I'll show it to you." They ascended two flights through increasing shabbiness. On the third floor at the rear was a room--a mere continuation of the narrow hall, partitioned off. It contained a small folding bed, a small table, a tiny bureau, a washstand hardly as large as that in the cabin on the boat, a row of hooks with a curtain of flowered chintz before them, a kitchen chair, a chromo of "Awake and Asleep," a torn and dirty rag carpet. The odor of the room, stale, damp, verging on moldy, seemed the fitting exhalation from such an assemblage of forbidding objects. "It's a nice, comfortable room," said Mrs. Wylie aggressively. "I couldn't afford to give it and two meals for five dollars except till the first of September. After that it's eight." "I'll be glad to stay, if you'll let me," said Susan. Mrs. Wylie's suspicion, so plain in those repellent eyes, took all the courage out of her. The great adventure seemed rapidly to be losing its charms. She could not think of herself as content or anything but sad and depressed in such surroundings as these. How much better it would be if she could live out in the open, out where it was attractive! "I suppose you've got some baggage," said Mrs. Wylie, as if she rather expected to hear that she had not. "I left it at the drug store," explained Susan. "Your trunk?" Susan started nervously at that explosive exclamation. "I--I haven't got a trunk--only a few things in a shawl strap." "Well, I never!" Mrs. Wylie tossed her head, clucked her tongue disgustedly against the roof of her mouth. "But I suppose if Mr. Ellison says so, why you can stay." "Thank you," said Susan humbly. Even if it would not have been basest ingratitude to betray her friend, Mr. Wylie, still she would not have had the courage to confess the truth about Mr. Ellison and so get herself ordered into the street. "I--I think I'll go for my things."