"You're the only thing on God's earth that's kept me from—sneakin" back there—honest. Lew, I'd have gone back long ago and eat dirt to make it up with him—if not for you. I—ain't built like Kittie Scogin and those girls. I got to be self-respectin' with the fellows or nothing. They think more of you in the end—that's my theory."
"Sure!"
"A girl's fly or—she just naturally ain't that way. That's where all my misunderstanding began with Kittie—when she wanted me to move over in them rooms on Forty-ninth Street with her—a girl's that way or she just ain't that way!"
"Sure!"
"Lew—will you—are you—you ain't kiddin' me all these weeks? Taxicabbin' me all night in the Park and—drinkin' around this way all the time together. You 'ain't been kiddin' me, Lew?"
He shot up his cigar to an oblique.
"Now you're shoutin'!" he repeated. "It took three months to get you down off your high horse, but now we're talkin' the same language."
"Lew!"
"It ain't every girl I take up with; just let that sink in. I like 'em frisky, but I like 'em cautious. That's where you made a hit with me. Little of both. Them that nibble too easy ain't worth the catch."
She reached out the other hand, covering his with her both.