“Where you come from then?”
Feeling now that she had gone to the bad, or was at the beginning of that process, she made a reply that would seem probable. “I come from a fella I’ve been—I’ve been livin’ with.”
“Gee!” The tone was of deepest pity. “Darned sorry to hear you’re in that box, a nice girl like you.”
“I ain’t such a nice girl as you might think.”
“Gee! Anyone can see you’re a nice girl, just from the way you walk.”
Letty was astounded. Was the way you walked part of Steptoe’s “trick to it?” In the hope of getting information she said, still in the secondary tongue: “What’s the matter with the way I walk?”
“There’s nothin’ the matter with it. That’s the trouble. Anyone can see that you’re not a girl that’s used to bein’ on the street at this hour of the night. Ain’t you goin’ anywheres?”
Fear of the police-station suddenly made her faint. If she wasn’t going anywheres he might arrest her. She bethought her of Steptoe’s scrawled address. “Yes, I’m goin’ there.”
As he stepped under the arc-light to read it she saw that he was a fatherly man, on the distant outskirts of youth, who might well have a family of growing boys and girls.