le. Upon inquiry in the kitchen
neither of the maids had seen nor heard her depart. Motoring? With a
hand that trembled in spite of itself, Alma telephoned the garage. Car
and chauffeur were there. Incredible as it seemed, Alma, upon more than
one occasion had lately been obliged to remind her mother that she was
becoming careless of the old pointedly rosy hand. Manicurist? She
telephoned the Bon Ton Beauty Parlor. No! Where, oh God, where? Which
way to begin? That was what troubled her most. To start right, so as not
to lose a precious second.

Suddenly, and for no particular reason, Alma began a hurried search
through her mother's dresser-drawers of lovely personal appointments.

A one-inch square of newspaper clipping apparently gouged from the sheet
with a hairpin, caught her eye from the top of one of the gold-backed
hair-brushes. Dawningly, Alma read.

It described in brief detail the innovation of a newly equipped Narcotic
Clinic on the Bowery below Canal Street, provided to medically
administer to the pathological cravings of addicts.

Fifteen minutes later Alma emerged from the subway at Canal Street and
with three blocks toward her destination ahead, started to run.

At the end of the first block she saw her mother, in the sable coat and
the black-lace hat, coming toward her.

Her first impulse was to run faster and yoo-hoo, but she thought better
of it and by biting her lips and digging her fingernails, was able to
slow down to a casual walk.

Carrie's fur coat was flaring open and because of the quality of her
attire down there where the bilge waters of the city-tide flow and eddy,
stares followed her.

Once, to the stoppage of Alma's heart, she halted and said a brief word
to a truckman as he crossed the sidewalk with a bill of lading. He
hesitated, laughed and went on.

Then she quickened her pace and went on, but as if with sense of being
followed, because constantly as she walked, she jerked a step, to look
back, and then again, over her shoulder.

A second time she stopped, this time to address a little nub of a woman
without a hat and lugging one-sidedly a stack of men's basted
waistcoats, evidently for homework in some tenement. She looked and
muttered her un-understanding of whatever Carrie had to say and shambled
on.

Then Mrs. Latz spied her daughter, greeting her without surprise or any
particular recognition.

"Thought you could fool me! Heh, Louis? Alma."

"Mama, it's Alma. It's