“It depends. All men haven’t had as much experience of it as I suppose you’ve had––”
“Oh, I haven’t had any.” The candor of the eyes was now in the whole of the truthful face. “Nobody was ever in love with me—never. I never had a fella—nor nothing.”
In spite of herself Barbara believed this. She couldn’t help herself. She could hear Rash saying that whatever else was wrong in the ridiculous business the girl herself was straight. All the same the discussion was beneath her. It was beneath her to listen to opinions of herself coming from such a source. If Rash didn’t “think much of her” there was something to “have out” with him, not with this little street-waif dressed up with this ludicrous mummery. The sooner she ended the business on which she had come the sooner she would get a legitimate outlet for the passion of jealousy and rage consuming her.
“But we’re wandering away from my errand. I won’t pretend that I’ve come of my own accord. I’m a very old friend of Mr. Allerton’s, and he’s asked me—or practically asked me—to come and find out––”
For what she was to come and find out she lacked for a minute the right word, and so held up the sentence.
“What I’d take to let him off?”
The form of expression was so crude that once more Barbara was startled. “Well, that’s what it would come to.”
“But I’ve told him already that—that I want to let him off anyhow.”
“Yes? And on what terms?”