She tried to summarize what she knew about the people next door, and was
amazed to discover how little she had to draw upon. As in most New York
apartment houses so in Jane's home all the tenants were utter strangers
to each other, one family not even knowing the names of any of the
others. Occasionally, to be sure, one rather resentfully rode up or down
in the elevator with some of the other tenants but always without
noticing or speaking to them. Jane's family had been living in the
building for five years, and of the twenty other families they knew the
names of only two, having learned them by accident rather than
intention. About the people next door Jane now discovered that she
really knew nothing at all. There was a man with a gray beard who never
took off his hat in the elevator, and there was the handsome young chap
whom she had just seen entering. But what their names were, or their
business, or how long they had lived there, or whether they were father
and son, what servants they kept, or whether either or both of them was
married--these were questions she could have answered as readily as if
they had been living in Dallas, Texas, or Seattle, Washington, as in the
next apartment. Quickly she found that she really knew nothing at all
about them except--she could not recall that any one had told her or how
she had got the impression--she was almost certain they were some sort
of foreigners.

Just when it was that her troubled thoughts were succeeded by even more
troubled dreams she was not aware, but it was noon the next day when she
was awakened by the maid bringing in her breakfast tray.

"Terrible, Miss Jane, wasn't it," said the servant, "about that suicide
last night, almost under our noses, you might say."