"But what law of God or Nature is it," said I to myself, "that makes men treat women so?" Had there been an answer which left one shred of dignity to my back, I might have made it. So far as I could see there was none. "Unless," I thought, "unless it is she asks no better of us and gets but little more."
The words had scarcely entered my mind when I was contradicted flatly to my face. From a doorway as I passed I heard a woman's voice.
"Here, I say."
I stopped, peering into the shadow. A girl was there, sheltering beneath the overhanging portal of the door.
"What is it?" I asked.
Perhaps the tone of genuine inquiry in my voice, no doubt a thousand other things as well, checked her in what she was going to say, for she caught the words and shut her lips upon them.
"What is it?" I asked again.
She screwed up her face into a smile; no doubt to hide the injured dignity in her heart.
"Would you like to give me my cab fare home?" said she.
Now had I received a blow of her hand across my face I should not have felt more surprise. It was so direct an answer to my assumption, to the very question I had put myself but a few steps back. I had assumed that women received the worst from us because they asked no better. Yet what better can a woman ask of any man than charity?