"Oh no," she said, looking away from him and her throat throbbing. "Oh no, you don't! Them things might have meant something to me once, but you've come too late with 'em. For eight years I been eatin' out my heart with 'em. Now you couldn't pay me to live at Schaefer's. I had to beg too long for it. Cincinnati! Why, its New-Year's Eve is about as lively as a real town's Monday morning. Oh no, you don't! Oh no!"
"Come on to bed, Hanna. You'll catch cold. Your breath's freezin'."
"I'm goin'—away, for good—that's where—I'm goin'!"
Her words threatened to come out on a sob, but she stayed it, the back of her hand to her mouth.
Her gaze was riveted, and would not move, from a little curtain above the wash-stand, a guard against splashing crudely embroidered in a little hand-in-hand boy and girl.
"You—you're sayin' a good many hasty things to-night, Hanna."
"Maybe."
He plucked at a gray-wool knot in the coverlet.
"Mighty hasty things."
She turned, then, plunging her hands into the great suds of feather bed, the whole thrust of her body toward him.