“I’d rather be in jail,” she flung back at him, “than stay where I’m not wanted.”
“That’s not the question.”
“It’s the biggest question of all for me. It’d be the biggest for you too if you were in my place.” She stretched out her hands to him. “Oh, please show me how to work the door, and let me go.”
He flared as he was in the habit of flaring whenever he was opposed. “You can go when we’ve settled the question of what you’ll have to live on.”
“I’ll have myself to live on—just as I had before I met you in the Park.”
“Nothing is the same for you or for me as before I met you in the Park.”
“No, but we want to make it the same, don’t we? You can’t—can’t marry the other girl till it is.”
“I can’t marry the other girl till I know you’re taken care of.”
“Money wouldn’t take care of me. That’s where you’re makin’ your mistake. You rich people think that money will do anything. So it will for you; but it don’t mean so awful much to me.” Her eyes, her 167 lips, her hands besought him together. “Think now! What would I do with money if I had it? It ain’t as if I was a lady. A lady has ways of doin’ nothin’ and livin’ all the same; but a girl like me don’t know anything about them. I’d go crazy if I didn’t work—or I’d die—or I’d do somethin’ worse.”
It was because his nerves were on edge that he cried out: “I don’t care a button what you do. I’m thinking of myself.”