The Nymph and the Lamp by Thomas H Raddall Page A

her from the doorway.
    â€œSurely you don’t think…” she gasped.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to think? Look at this room! Look at your things, all thrown about. Look at my carpet—ruined! I must say I’m surprised. I hadn’t expected such behavior in a respectable-looking person like you.”
    â€œOh, I’ll pay for the carpet,” Miss Jardine said desperately, “and I’ll tidy everything, Mrs. Paradee—only you must believe what I say.”
    â€œYoung lady, I’ve been too long in this business not to believe my own eyes. Look at yourself, practically nude. And with a man like Klaus—disgusting!” Mrs. Paradee uttered the word nude with a peculiar drawn-out emphasis that implied the worst.
    â€œBut how can you say such a thing! What have I ever done that you should think…why, it’s outrageous!”
    â€œDon’t take that tone with me. I don’t want to be harsh.”
    â€œOh, please!”
    â€œThat’s better.”’
    â€œThen you do believe me?”
    â€œNot at all. I keep a respectable house and you know my rules. You may keep your room for tonight. In the morning you must get out at once.”
    â€œBut I’m paid to the end of the week!” the girl cried, catching at straws. The landlady uttered a snort. “What about my carpet? If you’re going to make a difficulty like that, you can leave at once.” And she added virtuously, “I’m sure I’m only trying to be kind.”
    Miss Jardine nodded dumbly, turning a slow bewildered look about the bedroom as if to assure herself that all this was really happening. She shuddered. The struggle with Klaus was suddenly remote, it had happened too long ago to matter. She felt defiled, not by the wharfinger’s fuddled grasp but by something evil in the hard black eyes that searched her flesh as if the scrap of silk did not exist. She made a picture of despair, and for a moment the woman in the doorway was almost mollified. The moment passed. Mrs. Paradee put a hand to the knob, closed the door quietly and firmly, and passed along the hall and down the stairs.

CHAPTER 8
    With the departure of that ominous presence Miss Jardine’s first move was to lock the door in frantic haste, as if to shut out every memory of the twenty minutes past. She sat on the bed, still rumpled by the impact of her unwelcome visitor, and put her face in her hands. A mixture of emotions ravaged her. Humiliation, mirth, fright, indignation, all passed over her in waves like the chills and flushes of a fever patient. Eventually she lay full length and wept. Dimly she heard the returning steps of the lodgers, the opening of doors and windows, the familiar evening chatter of voices in the rooms and across the court.
    At last she sat up. The tears had dissolved the violence of her feelings and left a dull resentment, not of Klaus, not even of Mrs. Paradee so much as the chance that had made her victim of such an idiotic prank. It was all so preposterous, so like those uneasy dreams in which she found herself assailed by hordes of mice or walking down Hollis Street in nothing but her stockings, that she rose from the pillow trying to convince herself that none of it had taken place.
    A glance about the disordered room killed that. She drew her wits together. The urgent thing was to find another place to go. She ran over a mental list of lodgings. At worst she could get a room somewhere in the north end, as she had before. It cost more, and it was a bother, catching trams; but a good many city workers put up with that. It was really much nicer to live where there were trees and bits of lawn. In a few weeks she could forget that she had ever taken the third floor back at Mrs. Paradee’s.
    It occurred to her that the light in the room was dim, that in fact it was almost night. Suddenly she thought of Carney, waiting for her at the teashop. She sprang up and looked at her watch