left behind a case with foreign orders incrusted with several
thousand dollars' worth of gems. Bolsheviki, said the police; just as
they said auto bandits a few years ago when confronted with something
they could not understand. The orders had been turned over to the
Federal authorities from whom it was learned that they were all royal
and demi-royal. Neither of the two guests had returned up to noon, and
one had fled, leaving even his hat and coat. But there was nothing to
indicate his identity.

"Loot!" murmured Kitty. "All the scum in the world rising to the
top"--quoting Cutty. "Poor things!" as she thought of the gentle ladies
who had died horribly in bedrooms and cellars.

Kitty was beginning to cast about for more congenial quarters. There
were too many foreigners in the apartments, and none of them especially
good housekeepers. Always, nowadays, somebody had a washing out on the
line, the odour of garlic was continuously in the air, and there were
noisy children under foot in the halls. The families she and her mother
had known were all gone; and Kitty was perhaps the oldest inhabitant in
the block.

The living-room windows faced Eightieth Street; bedrooms, dining room,
and kitchen looked out upon the court. From the latter windows one could
step out upon the fire-escape platform, which ran round the three sides
of the court.

Among the present tenants she knew but one, an old man by the name of
Gregory, who lived opposite. The acquaintance had never ripened into
friendship; but sometimes Kitty would borrow an egg and he would borrow
some sugar. In the summertime, when the windows were open at night, she
had frequently heard the music of a violin swimming across the court.
Polish, Russian, and Hungarian music, always speaking with a tragic
note; nothing she had ever heard in concerts. Once, however, she had
heard him begin something from Thais, and stop in the middle of it; and
that convinced her that he was a master. She was fond of good music. One
day she asked Gregory why he did not teach music instead of valeting
at a hotel. His answer had been illuminative. It was only his body that
pressed clothes; but it would have torn his soul to listen daily to the
agonized bow of the novice. Kitty was lonely through pride as much as
anything. As for friends, she had a regiment of them. But she rarely
accepted their hospitality, realizing that she could not return it. No
young men called because she never invited