At first Jason had been lavish, almost with a smack of some of the old days she had known, spending with the easy prodigality of the gambler in luck. There was a near-seal coat from him in her cupboard of near-silks, and the flimsy wooden walls of her rooms had been freshly papered in roses.
Then his luck had turned, and to top his sparseness with her this new sullenness which she feared and yet which could be so delicious to her—reminiscently delicious.
She gave him coffee, and he drank it like medicine out of a thick-lipped cup painted in roses.
"My Red-boy blue," she reiterated, trying to ingratiate her arms about his neck. "Red-boy tells Winnie he won't be back for two whole days and then brings her surprise party very next day. Red-boy can't stay away from Winnie."
"Let go."
"Red-boy bring Winnie nothing? Not little weeny, weeny nothing?" drawing a design down his coat sleeve, her mouth bunched.
Suddenly he jerked her so that the breath jumped in a warm fan of it against her face.
"You're the only thing I've got in the world, Win. My luck's gone, but
I've got you. Tell me I've got you."
He could be equally intense over which street car to take, and she knew it, but somehow it lessened for her none of the lure of his nervosity, and with her mind recoiling from his pennilessness her body inclined.
"Tell me, Winnie, that I have you."