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There was no response to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the adjoining shack and observed her curiously. "Wanta rent?" he called jëeringly. "Are you in charge here?" Geneviève inquired. "Sorter," he temporized. "Watcha want?" "I want some one who knows something about it to go around Kentwood with us." "What for?" he snarled. "I got my orders."
For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved" sections of Kentwood and Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot begrimed everything. The sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages."
And plenty, too, said the guests pleasantly. Genevieve hoped there were eggs and bacon for Marie and Lottie and Frieda. "I'm going to ask you for just a mouthful more, it tastes so delicious and homy!" said Alys. "And then I want to talk a little business, George. It's about those houses of mine, out in Kentwood...." George looked at her blankly, over his drumstick.
They assured her that it was as much her duty to know about such things as to know the condition of her own back yard. Then came the awful revelations of Kentwood human beings huddled like rats; children swarming, dirty and hungry! She could not bear to remember the scenes she had witnessed in Kentwood. She recalled the shock of Alys Brewster-Smith's indifference to all that misery!
"Well, when you agree to act as a person's agent, you've got to act in that person's interest; and when it's a question of the interest of the owners of those Kentwood cottages, whether they're men or women, my idea was that I didn't care for the job." "I think you're perfectly right about it," Betty said.
"I ain't fergittin' it. There's too much nosin' round Kentwood district by the women, George. Too much talkin'. Ye'd better call that off right now. Property owners down there is satisfied, an' they got their rights, ye know." "I suppose you know what the conditions down there are?"
A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites. The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted. For the first time since their course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts, Geneviève faced her passengers. Alys' face was pale.
"We don't want yer help ner yer advice. You keep yer hands off our business! Do yer preachin' uptown that's where they need it. Ask the landlords of Kentwood and the stockholders in the munition factories to make some sacrifices, an' see where that gits ye! But don't ye come down here, a-spyin' on us, ye dirty "
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