She strengthened her statement with an affirmative nod. “Yes, I did.”
“Well, then, I’ve always paid the people who’ve taken care of me––”
“Oh, but you didn’t ask me to take care of you, and I didn’t take no care. You wanted me to be a disgrace to you, and I thought so little of myself that I said I’d go and be it. Now I’ve got to pay for that, not be paid for it.”
Her head was up with what Steptoe considered to be mettle. Though the picture she presented was stamped on his mind as resembling the proud mien of the girl in Whistler’s Yellow Buskin, he didn’t think of that till later.
“There’s one thing I must ask you to remember,” he said, in a tone he tried to make firm, “that I couldn’t possibly accept from you anything in the way of sacrifice.”
Her eyes were wide and earnest. “But I never thought of makin’ anything in the way of sacrifice.”
“It would be sacrifice for you to help me get out of this scrape, and have nothing at all to the good.”
“But I’d have lots to the good.” She reflected. “I’d have rememberin’.”
“What have you got to remember?”