“Maybe. But I was aimin’ to go anyhow. Why don’t you go with me, an’—an’ stay with me?”
She looked at him steadily.
“I ain’t fit.”
“You’re as fit as I am,” he said quietly, in the soft, rumbling, reassuring bass that seemed kin to rivers and winds. “What d’you say to a clean break an’ a new start together?” He lingered on the last word wistfully. “I’ve been pretty lonesome, you know, a-knockin’ round from one prospect hole to another an’ livin’ like a pack rat.”
She got up and came close and looked at him intently. The yellow piano scarf that covered her befrizzled red head like an incongruous cowl and clashed crudely with her red dress; her silver slippers, her spangles, the bunch of cotton roses at her waist, her rouged cheeks and scarlet lips and half-bared heaving breasts contrasted strangely with her honest eyes.
“Do you want it for yourself, Jim?”
“For myself—more’n anything.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“So help me God.”
He had expected her arms about his neck, but she gave him her hand like a man.