She left the house alone after dark and walked along Fifth Avenue till she found a taxicab. She gave the street number Hodshon had given her and stepped in. She kept an eye on the lighted clock and in the dark sorted out the exact change and a tip, adding dimes as they were recorded on the meter. She did not want to have to pause for change, and she did not wish to make herself conspicuous by an extravagant tip. As the taxicab slid along the Avenue Charity wondered if any of the passengers in other cabs could have an errand so gruesome as hers. She was tortured by fantastic imaginings of what she might hear. She wondered how a man would talk to such a person as Zada, and how she would answer. She imagined the most dreadful things she could. The taxicab surprised her by stopping suddenly before a brown-fronted residence adjoining an apartment-house of (more or less literally) meretricious ornateness. She stepped out, paid her fare, and turned, to find Mr. Hodshon at her elbow. He had been waiting for her. He recognized her by her melodramatic veil. He gave her needed help up a high stoop and opened the door with a key. She found herself in a shabby, smelly hall where no one else was. He motioned her up the stairway, and she climbed with timidity. At each level there were name-plates over the electric buttons. The very labels seemed illicit. Hodshon motioned her up and up for four flights. Then he opened a door and stepped back to let her enter a room unfurnished except for a few chairs and a table. Two men were in the room, and they were laughing with uproar. One of them had a telephone-receiver clamped to his ear, and he was making shorthand notes, explaining to his companion what he heard. They turned in surprise at Hodshon's entrance and rose to greet Charity with the homage due so great a client. Charity could hardly bespeak them civilly. They took her curtness for snobbery, but it was not. It swept over her that these people were laughing over her most sacred tragedy. She advanced on the operator and put out her hand for the headpiece he wore. He took it off and rubbed it with his handkerchief, and told her that she must remove her hat and veil. She came out startlingly white and brilliant from the black. She put the elastic clamp over her head and set the receiver to her ear. Instantly she was assailed by dreadful noises, a jangle of inarticulate sounds like the barking of two dogs. “I can't hear a word,” she protested. “They're talkin' too loud,” said the operator. “The only way to beat the dictagraph is to cut the wire or yell.” “Are they quarreling, then?” Charity asked, almost with pleasure. “Yes, ma'am. But it's the lady and her maid. They been havin' a terrible scrap about marketin'. He--Mr. Cheever--ain't there yet. They're expectin' him, though.”