"Lemme go, Eddie! I gotta go—it's late!"
"I know, Goldie. They been guyin' me at the office about you passin' me up; and it's right—ain't it? It's—It's him—" She shook her head and tugged for the freedom of her hand. Tears crowded into her eyes like water to the surface of a tumbler just before the overflow. "It's him—ain't it, Goldie?"
"Well, you won't give—give a girl a chance to say anything. If you'd have given me time I was comin' over and tell you, and—and tell—"
"Goldie!"
"I was—I was—"
"It's none of my business, girlie; but—but he ain't fit for you. He—"
"There you go! The whole crowd of you make me—"
"He ain't fit for no girl, Goldie! Listen to me, girlie! He's just a regular ladykiller! He can't keep a job no more'n a week for the life of him! I used to know him when I worked at Delaney's. Listen to me, Goldie! This here new minin' scheme he's in ain't even on the level! It ain't none of my business; but, good God, Goldie, just because a guy's good-lookin' and a swell dresser and—"
She sprang from his grasp and up the three remaining steps. In the sooty flare of the street lamp she was like Jeanne d'Arc heeding the vision or a suffragette declaiming on a soap-box and equal rights.
"You—the whole crowd of you make me sick! The minute a fellow graduates out of the sixty-dollar-clerk class, and can afford a twenty-dollar suit, without an extra pair of pants thrown in, the whole pack of you begin to yowl and yap at his heels like—"