On the fourth flight she paused for a moment to catch her breath.  But she realized, as she paused, that even breathing had to be done under difficulties in this place.  There was no ventilation of any sort, so far as she could tell—­all about her floated the odours of boiled cabbage, and fried onions, and garlic.  And there were other odours, too; the indescribable smells of soiled clothing and soap-suds and greasy dishes.

But in Rose-Marie’s mind, the odours—­poignant though they were—­took second place to the sounds.  Never, she told herself, had she imagined that so many different sorts of noises could exist in the same place at one and the same time.  There were the cries and sobs of little children, the moans of sickness, the thuds of falling furniture and the crashes of breaking crockery.  There were yells of rage, and—­worst of all—­bursts of appalling profanity.  Rose-Marie, standing there in the darkness of the fourth flight, heard words that she had never expected to hear—­phrases of which she had never dreamed.  She shuddered as she started up the fifth flight, and when, at last, she stood in front of the Volsky flat, she experienced almost a feeling of relief.  At least she would be shut off, in a moment, from those alien and terrible sounds—­at least, in a moment, she would be in a home.

To most of us—­particularly if we have grown up in an atmosphere such as had always sheltered Rose-Marie—­the very sound of the word “home” brings a certain sense of warmth and comfort.  Home stands for shelter and protection and love.  “Be it ever so humble,” the old song tells us, “be it ever so humble ...”

And Rose-Marie, knocking timidly upon the Volsky door, expected to find a home.  She expected it to be humble in the truest sense of the word—­to be ragged and poverty-stricken and mean.  And yet she could not feel that it would be utterly divorced from the ideals she had always built around her conception of the word.  She expected it to be a home because a family lived there together—­a mother, and a father, and children.

In answer to her knock the door swung open—­a little way.  The glow of a dingy lamp fell about her, through the opening—­she felt suddenly as if she had been swept, willy-nilly, before the footlights of some hostile stage.  For a moment she stood blinking.  And as she stood there, quite unable to see, she heard the voice of Bennie Volsky, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

“It’s you, Miss!” said the voice, and it was as full of intense wonderment as a voice could be.  “I never thought that you’d come—­I didn’t think you was on th’ level.  So many folks say they’ll do things—­” he broke off, and then—­“Walk in, quiet,” he told her slowly.  “Don’t make any noise, if yer can help it!  Pa’s come home, all lit up.  An’ he’s asleep, in th’ corner!  There’ll be—­” he broke off—­“There’ll be th’ dickens t’ pay, if Pa wakes up!  But walk in, still-like.  An’ yer can see Ma an’ all, an’—­Lily!”