“You git, Nick! What do you mean by...?” cried out the Girl in a tone that left no doubt in the minds of her hearers that she was annoyed, if not angry, at the intrusion.
Nick disappeared into the dance-hall as though shot out of a gun; whereupon, the Girl turned to Johnson with:
“I haven’t lived? That’s good!”
Johnson’s next words were insinuating, but his voice was cold in comparison with the fervent tones of a moment previous.
“Oh, you know!” was what he said, seating himself at the poker table.
“No, I don’t,” contradicted the Girl, taking a seat opposite him.
“Yes, you do,” he insisted.
“Well, say it’s an even chance I do an’ an even chance I don’t,” she parried.
Once more the passion in the man was stirring.
“I mean,” he explained in a voice that barely reached her, “life for all it’s worth, to the uttermost, to the last drop in the cup, so that it atones for what’s gone before, or may come after.”