“Look here!” he said sternly. “This can’t go on! I—”
“Don’t you see? He thought we were a bride and groom, trying to get away.”
Edward believed none of this. He did not believe that he was in any danger of being killed by any person whatsoever, or that the clerk had thought what the unknown imagined; but women, as he had noticed before, always believed what they wished to believe.
“I have to live in this town, you know,” he observed.
Of course this observation did not move her. Women never considered the future. They lived, reckless and heedless, in the present moment.
“Where do you want to go now?” he pursued. “It’s getting late.”
“Leave me!” said she. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you for all you’ve done. Go away and leave me!”
“I can’t leave you here—in an alley,” said Edward, repressing a violent irritation.
“What does it matter?” said she. “I don’t care what becomes of me!”
“Well, I do!” said Edward.