d. The hooked only get a front
view. They only see faces and arms and chests. But the hookers--they see
the necks and shoulderblades of this world, as well as faces. It's
mighty broadening--being a hooker. It's the hookers that keep this world
together, Julia, and fastened up right. It wouldn't amount to much if it
had to depend on such as that!" She nodded her head in the direction the
cerise figure had taken. "The height of her ambition is to get the
cuticle of her nails trained back so perfectly that it won't have to be
cut; and she don't feel decently dressed to be seen in public unless
she's wearing one of those breastplates of orchids. Envy her! Why,
Julia, don't you know that as you were standing here in your black dress
as she passed she was envying you!"

"Envying me!" said Julia, and laughed a short laugh that had little of
mirth in it. "You don't understand, Sadie!"

Sadie Corn smiled a rather sad little smile.

"Oh, yes, I do understand. Don't think because a woman's homely, and
always has been, that she doesn't have the same heartaches that a pretty
woman has. She's built just the same inside."

Julia turned her head to stare at her wide-eyed. It was a long and
trying stare, as though she now saw Sadie Corn for the first time.

Sadie, smiling up at the girl, stood it bravely. Then, with a sudden
little gesture, Julia patted the wrinkled, sallow cheek and was off down
the hall and round the corner to two-eighteen.

The lights still blazed in the bedroom. Julia closed the door and stood
with her back to it, looking about the disordered chamber. In that
marvellous way a room has of reflecting the very personality of its
absent owner, room two-eighteen bore silent testimony to the manner of
woman who had just left it. The air was close and overpoweringly sweet
with perfume--sachet, powder--the scent of a bedroom after a vain and
selfish woman has left it. The litter of toilet articles lay scattered
about on the dresser. Chairs and bed held garments of lace and silk. A
bewildering negligee hung limply over a couch; and next it stood a
patent-leather slipper, its mate on the floor.

Julia saw these things in one accustomed glance. Then she advanced to
the middle of the room and stooped to pick up a pink wadded bedroom
slipper from where it lay under the bed. And her hand touched a coat of
velvet and fur that had been flung across the counterpane--touched it
and rested there.

The coat was of stamped velv