“You said,” she continued pleadingly, “that there was no excuse for me and girls like me. Maybe you would find one if you knew what we are up against. Every one knocks instead of boosts, and tells us how low-down we are. Just as if a mirror were held up to an ugly-looking girl, and she were asked how anyone who looked like that could expect to be different. Suppose I should tell you I’d been to reformatories and places where I had learned that I must play the stupid act as I did with Bender so as to be kept from being sent up. There is no mercy for those who exhibit any glimpses of intelligence, you see. This time I thought I was a goner for life until you pried me loose. All doors seemed closed, but you opened the window. No one was ever really kind to me before, except a Salvation Army woman and—some one else.”
“What was the name of that some one else?” he interrupted.
She hesitated, and for the first time seemed confused.
“Was it,” he demanded, “Jo Gary?”
“Oh!” she gasped. Then quickly recovering, she continued: “You’re quite a detective for an acting one. If you were the real thing, you’d be a regular Sherlock Holmes and make a clean sweep of crooks.”
“Answer my question.”
“It doesn’t seem necessary to tell you anything; you know so much. I seem to know that name. Was he at a dance in Chicago—let me see, Hurricane Hall?” she asked serenely. “Is this his part of the country, and shall I see him?”
“It was his part of the country. You can not see him.”
A wistful note crept into her voice as she said:
“I should like to see him just once, but I suppose you won’t tell me where he is. I don’t dare let on to you how grateful I really feel to you, because I might lose my nerve and I’ve just got to hang on to that. It’s my only asset in trade. We have to use lots of bluff. Besides, someway you make me feel contrary. Maybe I am the lightning and you the thunder.”