“You mean that you’d take me out of this—for a little while—and let me—let me——”
“No,” he denied gravely; “I didn’t mean that. But if I should do that—what then?”
A soft light leaped into the blue Irish eyes and for a moment the reckless look vanished and the girl’s face became almost beautiful.
“I’d—I’d work my fingers to the bone to make it last as long as I could—with you!”
“Why with me, rather than with another man?”
“I can tell,” she said. “You’re not like other men. Even when you’re drunk, you don’t forget. I know!”
Another little silence, and at the end of it: “You must know the truth about me, Mona. I have been to the bottom—I’m on the bottom, now; just as much out of the decent running as you are. And I have fallen so hard that it makes me feel for other people who are caught and can’t get loose. Can you understand that?”
“It’s terribly dumb I’d be if I couldn’t—the way I’m living.”
“All right; then we’ll go on. When I was here before it seemed to me that you hadn’t gone quite stony hard—as some of them do; that if you had a chance, you might climb back. Would you?”
She shook her head.