"You—please!"
He glanced down at her yellowish face, with the daubed-on red standing out frankly, tossed her a sneer and a foreign expression, and brushed by. She darted back as though he had struck at her, and panic closed her in.
A young giant, tall as a Scandinavian out of Valhalla, with wide shoulders, a wide stride, and heavy-soled, laced-to-the-knee boots that clattered loudly, ran up the steps of the Electric Institute, and she flashed across the sidewalk, her arm reaching out.
"You—please!"
He paused, with the street lamp full on his smiling mouth and wide-apart, smiling eyes, one foot in the act of ascending, after the manner of tailors' fashion-plates, which are for ever in the casual attitude of mounting stairs.
"You—please! Please—"
"Aw, little lady, go home and go to bed. This ain't no time and place for a little thing like you. Here, take this and go home, little girl."
She arrested his arm on its way to his pocket, her breath crowding out her words, and the stinging red of shame burning through her rouge.
"No, no! For Gawd's sakes, no! It's—my mother—"
He brought his feet down to a level.