“You’ve got a f-fat chance, Wint,” she said, and her voice broke, and she was very near crying through her smiles. “I’ve waked up, now. You’ve got a fine, fat chance of that.”
“I don’t hold it against you,” he said. “I’d—be good to you.”
“Don’t be a nut, darn you! You’ll make me cry. I came near crying myself to death, last night.”
Wint’s curiosity was awake; he asked again: “What happened?”
“Why, you knocked us all flat,” she said. “I took it out in crying. Routt beat it after you. He was the first to move.”
There was a curious, hard quality in her voice; and Wint asked: “Was it....” He bit off the question, furious with himself for asking. She said slowly:
“Never mind. That’s past. I thought for a while I’d be better dead; but I know better, now. Nothing can kill you unless you want to be killed. Nobody ever fell so hard they couldn’t get up. I’m going to get up, Wint, and go right on living.”
He told her quickly: “Of course. I’ll help. Honestly....”
She said fiercely: “You will not. If you think I’m going to let you go through with this—” She broke off, laughed. “Well, I was telling you what happened. Routt beat it after you. The rest of us sat still, me bawling. Then your father got up and ran out to the front door, and out to the street. While he was gone, Kite begun to stir. I looked at Kite. Believe me, Wint, he was squashed. He hadn’t expected you to—do what you did. He looked like a dead man. He stuffed his things into his pocket and he pattered out into the hall. Then he came back; and he said to me:
“‘Come, Hetty.’