“W—­what—­what is it?” Rose heard her ask.

“Let me in,” said Rose.  “Sorry I disturbed your nap, but I had to come back for my ulster.”

Dolly was standing just at the other side of the door, she knew, but there was no sound of drawing the bolt.  Only a long silence and then a sob.

“What’s the matter?” Rose demanded.  “Let me in.”

“You can’t come in!” said Dolly, and panic couldn’t have spoken plainer than in her voice.  “Oh, go away!  What did you come back for?  You said you were going to be gone hours.  Go away!”

Out of a frozen throat Rose answered: 

“All right.  I’ll go away.”  The situation was too miserably clear.

She went down to the lobby and a sudden giddiness caused her to drop down into the first chair she saw.  She sat there for an hour, then went to the desk and told the clerk she wanted a room for that night by herself.  She’d pay the extra price of it now.

The clerk took the money and selected a key from the rack.  The look he saw in Rose’s face silenced any comment, jocular or otherwise, that he might have made.

Rose went to her new room, took off her hat and jacket, and washed her face.  When she heard the supper bell ringing down-stairs, she went back to her old room and knocked.

“Come in,” said Dolly, and Rose entering, found her standing at the window looking out.

She had tried, while she sat down there in the lobby, and later in her own room, to think out what she’d say to Dolly when they next met.  She hadn’t been able to think of anything to say.  She could think of nothing now.  So, in silence, she began putting her smaller belongings into her half unpacked suit-case and laying the clothes that hung in the closet across a chair.

“So you’re going to walk out on me are you?” said Dolly.  Rose was aware that she’d been watching these proceedings.

“I’m going to have a room by myself for to-night,” said Rose.

Dolly amazed her by flying into a sudden rage.

“Oh, you!” she said.  “You make me sick.  You’re a hypocrite, that’s what you are.  Pretending to be so haughty and innocent, and then come spying back here, on purpose, and acting so shocked!  You don’t think I’m fit to live with, do you.  Just because I’ve got a friend.  You thought you was fit to live with me, all right, when you had two of them and wasn’t straight with either.”

Rose straightened up and looked at her.  “What do you mean?” she demanded.

“That’s right, go on with the bluff,” said Dolly furiously.  “But you can’t bluff me.  Larson put me wise to you that day in Dubuque, when that big guy—­’Rodney’—­came up to see you.  He was one of them, and the fellow who put on the show in Chicago—­what’s his name?—­Galbraith, was the other.  You tried to play them both and got left.”

“That’s what Olga Larson told you?” asked Rose.