"No—nothing."
"Need some money? I can lend you ten. I did have twenty, but I gave Sallie and that little Jew girl who's her side partner ten for the bail bondsman. They got pinched last night for not paying up to the police. They've gone crazy about that prize fighter—at least, he thinks he is—that Joe O'Mara, and they're giving him every cent they make. It's funny about Sallie. She's a Catholic and goes to mass regular. And she keeps straight on Sunday—no money'll tempt her—I've seen it tried. Do you want the ten?"
"No. I've got plenty."
"We must look in at that Jolly Rovers' ball tonight. There'll be a lot of fellows with money there.
"We can sure pull off something pretty good. Anyhow, we'll have fun. But you don't care for the dances. Well, they are a waste of time. And because the men pay for a few bum drinks and dance with a girl, they don't want to give up anything more. How's she to live, I want to know?"
"Would you like to get out of this, Clara?" interrupted Susan, coming out of her absent-mindedness.
"Would I! But what's the use of talking?"
"But I mean, would you really?"
"Oh—if there was something better. But is there? I don't see how I'd be as well off, respectable. As I said to the rescue woman, what is there in it for a 'reclaimed' girl, as they call it? When they ask a man to reform they can offer him something—and he can go on up and up. But not for girls. Nothing doing but charity and pity and the second table and the back door. I can make more money at this and have a better time, as long as my looks last. And I've turned down already a couple of chances to marry—men that wouldn't have looked at me if I'd been in a store or a factory or living out. I may marry."
"Don't do that," said Susan. "Marriage makes brutes of men, and slaves of women."