"I'll be right in.

I want to get something." Then, as an afterthought, she called very sweetly: "Oh, Mrs.Sohlberg, won't you come up to my room for a moment?
I have something I want to show you." Rita responded promptly.

She always felt it incumbent upon her to be very nice to Aileen.
"We have only a moment to stay," she replied, archly and sweetly, and coming out in the hall, "but I'll come up." Aileen stayed to see her go first, then followed up-stairs swiftly, surely, entered after Rita, and closed the door.

With a courage and rage born of a purely animal despair, she turned and locked it; then she wheeled swiftly, her eyes lit with a savage fire, her cheeks pale, but later aflame, her hands, her fingers working in a strange, unconscious way.
"So," she said, looking at Rita, and coming toward her quickly and angrily, "you'll steal my husband, will you?
You'll live in a secret apartment, will you?
You'll come here smiling and lying to me, will you?
You beast! You cat! You prostitute! I'll show you now! You tow-headed beast! I know you now for what you are! I'll teach you once for all! Take that, and that, and that!" Suiting action to word, Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor's hat from her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty if she could.

For the moment she was really crazy with rage.
By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back completely.