She stayed there for a moment, panting. Then, "I'm going to marry Mr. Perkins," she told him. "To-morrow—if I live!"
"T'morrow!" He shouted the word. "What're y' talkin' about? I'll kill y' first! I'll——"
"Oh, don't!" As Barber reached to seize Cis again, Johnnie dragged at his sleeve.
But the longshoreman did not notice him. It was Cis who cried out to Johnnie, still defying Big Tom. "Oh, let him do what he wants!" she said. "Because he won't have a chance even to speak to me after to-day! Let him! Let him!"
Barber shook her, and stepped back. "After t'-day," he told her, "y'll work right here at home!"
"Home! Home!" She laughed wildly. "Do you call this a home?"
"I'll see that y' behave y'rself!" he vowed.
"You'd better see that you behave yourself!" she retorted. "Because Johnnie doesn't belong to you—you haven't any rights over him! And he's gone once, and he'll go again—after I go! And I'm going the minute I can stand on my feet! I've stayed here long enough! Then you can try it alone for a change!"
"Oh, can I?"
"I'll never do another thing for you!" she went on; "—in this flat or out! No, not in all the rest of my life! Oh, I'm not like Johnnie! I can't pretend it's beautiful when it's awful! and imagine good clothes, and decent food, and have my friends driven away, and insulted! I won't stand it! I know what's wrong! I see things the way they are! And I'm not going to put up with them! No girl could bear what you ask me to bear! This flat! My room! The way I have to work—at the factory, and then here, too! And no butter! No fruit! And the mean snarling, snarling, snarling! And never a cent for myself!"