“Are you going?” Howard inquired, noting that he was interested and not pleased. “The house wouldn’t seem natural without you.”
She gave him a quick, gratified glance and, advancing further into the room, sat upon the arm of the big rocking-chair. “She gave me a good talking to,” she went on with a smile. “She told me I ought not to live alone at my age. She said I ought to live with her and meet some friends of hers. She said maybe I’d find a nice fellow to marry.”
Howard thought over this as he smoked and at last said in an ostentatiously judicial tone: “Well, I think she’s right. I don’t see what else there is to do. You can’t live on down here alone always. What’s become of Nellie?”
“Nellie’s got to be a bad girl,” said Alice with a blush and a dropping of the eyes. “She’s in Fourteenth Street every night. She says she doesn’t care what happens to her. I saw her last night and she wanted me to come with her. She says it’s of no use for me to put on airs. She says I’ve got no friends and I might as well join her sooner as later.”
“Well?” Howard was keeping his eyes carefully away from hers.
“Oh, I sha’n’t go with her. As long as a girl has got anything at all to live for, she doesn’t want that. Besides I’d rather go to the East River.”
“Drowning’s a serious matter,” said Howard with a smile and with banter in his tone.
“Yes, it is,” said the girl seriously, “I’ve thought of it. And I don’t believe I could.”
“Then you’d better go with your friend and get married.”
“I don’t want to get married,” she replied, shaking her head slowly from side to side.