She let him catch her up to his shoulder and hold her there, with her wet cheek against his; she even said nothing when he bent and kissed her on the lips, though her face grew colorless at his touch.
“I do love you,” she sighed weakly. “I do love you! I do!” and she clung to him, childishly, shaken with a sob or two, happy, yet vaguely troubled.
“Then why can’t we get away from here, somewhere, and be happy?”
“Where?” she asked.
“Anywhere, where there’s daylight and honesty and fair play!”
“There’s MacNutt!” she cried, remembering, opening her drooping eyes to grim life again. “He’d—he’d—” She did not finish.
“What’s he to us?” Durkin demanded. “He hasn’t bought our souls!”
“No, but we have to live—we have to work and pay as we go. And he could stop everything!”
“Let him interfere,” cried the other, fiercely. “I’ve never been afraid of him! I’m as good a fighter as he is, by heaven! Just let him interfere, and he’ll find his filthy money isn’t everything!”
The woman at his side was silent. “I only wish I had a few of his thousands,” added Durkin, more humbly.