“Over there in the Park.”

“And she went and married you—like that?”

“She was all alone—chucked out by a stepfather––”

She burst into a hard laugh. “Oh, you baby! You believed that? The kind of story that’s told by nine of the––”

BY THE TIME HE HAD FINISHED, HIS HEART WAS A LITTLE EASED AND SOME OF HER TENDERNESS BEGAN TO FLOW TOWARD HIM

68

He interrupted quickly. “Don’t call her anything, Barbe—I mean any kind of a bad name. She’s all right as far as that goes. There’s a kind that couldn’t take you in.”

“There’s no kind that couldn’t take you in!”