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The scrub-woman had risen in the strength of desperation and killed the beast who had maimed her. She had only sunk a limp mass of shivering, helpless cowardice and fled from the room whining and pleading for mercy. She could never respect herself again. The scene came back in vivid flashes.
"I don't like that young feller's looks," the clerk told the scrub-woman; "we don't want any more free reading notices in the papers of this hotel being a roadhouse on the way to heaven."
"I might have known that you couldn't understand, that you never could understand why I am going away. I've lived with you all this time, and you do not know me any better than you know the scrub-woman. I'm going away from you forever." In spite of herself, she ended with an uncontrollable sob.
She put out a hand, encouragingly, and brought forward the shrinking, cowering, timorous figure of Anna Czarnik, scrub-woman on the sixth floor. Her hand still on her shoulder Martha Foote led her to the centre of the room, where she stood, gazing dumbly about. She was the scrub-woman you've seen in every hotel from San Francisco to Scituate. A shapeless, moist, blue calico mass.
Sometimes he remembered not to say "ma'am." "And your food, your own personal comforts, your—" "Don't worry about me, madam. I make out very well." "And you are all alone there? All alone in that dark, grim old house? Oh, how terribly lonely it must be. I—" she shivered slightly. "I have a scrub-woman in twice a month, and Murray comes to see me once in awhile. I read a great deal."
The poor woman, either startled by my sudden address or by my manner which may have been a little sharp, gave a quick bound backward, and was only deterred by the near presence of the policeman from attempting flight. As it was, she stood her ground, though the fiery flush, which made her face so noticeable, deepened till her cheeks and brow were scarlet. "I am the scrub-woman," she protested.
Now that McTeague had left her, there was one less mouth to feed; and with this saving, together with the little she could earn as scrub-woman, Trina could almost manage to make good the amount she lost by being obliged to cease work upon the Noah's ark animals. Little by little her sorrow over the loss of her precious savings overcame the grief of McTeague's desertion of her.
But though I did not relish this careless association of myself with this poor scrub-woman, I was careful to show no displeasure, for I reasoned that as witnesses we were equal before the law, and that it was solely in this light he regarded us.
She replied that she was a scrub-woman and cleaned people's houses, and having said this, she assumed a very dogged air, which I thought strange enough to raise a question in the minds of those who watched her. But no one else seemed to regard it as anything but the embarrassment of ignorance. "How long have you known the Van Burnam family?" the Coroner went on.
"I?" she repeated, her weak eyelids quivering for a moment as she tried to sustain my scrutiny. "How should I know? I came in with the policeman and haven't been any nearer than I now be. What makes you think I know anything about her? I'm only the scrub-woman, and don't even know the names of the family."
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