"But you can help other people—who need it more."
"Oh, don't keep that up. I know what you need. I've told you already I've seen starvation before. Don't be offended! And when it's you, some one we've all known, and liked— Boyd liked you from the first."
"But not from the last."
"He thinks you're—you're strange, naturally. We all think so. I think so. But that doesn't make any difference when you don't get enough to eat."
"And suppose I turned out to be only an adventurer?"
She shrugged her shoulders, after a habit she had. "That would be your responsibility. Don't you see? I'm not thinking so much about you as I am about myself. It's nothing to me what you are, not any more than what Lydia is, or a dozen others I could name to you. I think it highly probable that Lydia Blair will take the road we call going to the bad—"
"Oh, surely not!"
This invitation to digression she also swept aside. "She won't do it with her eyes shut, never fear! She'll know all about it, and take her own way because it's hers. Don't pity her. If I were half so free—"
"Well?"
"Well, for one thing, you'd have another chance. If you didn't use it that would be your own affair."