“But you do know me,” was her answer, as she watched the smoke from his cigar curl upwards toward the ceiling.
“Not well enough,” he sighed.
For a brief second only she was silent. Whether she read his thoughts it would be difficult to say; but there came a moment soon when she could not mistake them.
“What’s your drift, anyway?” she asked, looking him full in the face.
“To know you as Dante knew the lady—‘One hour for me, one hour worth the world,’” he told her, all the while watching and loving her beauty.
At the thought she trembled a little, though she answered with characteristic bluntness:
“He didn’t git it, Mr. Johnson.”
“All the same there are women we could die for,” insisted Johnson, dreamily.
The Girl was in the act of carrying her cup to her mouth but put it down on the table. Leaning forward, she inquired somewhat sneeringly:
“Mr. Johnson, how many times have you died?”