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 them.
All this, however, was going to change when she moved.