Sheila turned her head. They were passing the double door of the saloon
and went slowly along the front of the hotel.

It stood on that corner where the main business street intersects with
the Best Residence Street. Its main entrance opened into the flattened
corner of the building where the roof rose to a fantastic façade. For the
rest, the hotel was of yellowish-brick, half-surrounded by a wooden porch
where at milder seasons of the year in deep wicker chairs men and women
were always rocking with the air of people engaged in serious and not
unimportant work. At such friendlier seasons, too, by the curb was always
a weary-looking Ford car from which grotesquely arrayed "travelers" from
near-by towns and cities were descending covered with alkali dust--faces,
chiffon veils, spotted silk dresses, high white kid boots, dangling
purses and all, their men dust-powdered to a wrinkled sameness of aspect.
At this time of the year the porch was deserted, and the only car in
sight was Hudson's own, which wriggled and slipped its way courageously
along the rutted, dirty snow.

Around the corner next to the hotel stood Hudson's home. It was a large
house of tortured architecture, cupolas and twisted supports and strange,
overlapping scallops of wood, painted wavy green, pinkish red and yellow.
Its windows were of every size and shape and appeared in unreasonable,
impossible places--opening enormous mouths on tiny balconies with twisted
posts and scalloped railings, like embroidery patterns, one on top of the
other up to a final absurdity of a bird cage which found room for itself
between two cupolas under the roof.

Up the steps of the porch Mrs. Hudson mounted grimly, followed by Babe.
Sylvester stayed to tinker with the car, and Sheila, after a doubtful,
tremulous moment, went slowly up the icy path after the two women.