"You say you don't," snarled the other between his teeth. "You got more than twenty dollars out of that guy last night, didn't you? I know you did."
"S' help me God, Ernie, I didn't get a—"
"He had nearly fifty dollars in the saloon."
"I don't know where it got to, then. I nipped only two tens, I swear, Ernie. Why, I wouldn't do you a dirty trick like that for the world."
"You done me a dirty trick once," grated the misshapen lad. "If it hadn't been for you I'd be as straight as anybody and I—"
"Don't begin on that again, Ernie," pleaded Dick. "Ain't you ever going to give me a rest on that? Ain't I trying to make up for it, the best I know how?"
"Yes, and didn't you let 'em catch you back there in Staunton? Is that the way you make it up? Letting me starve—almost." He glared at the ground. "Yes, if I was straight she'd look at me, too. She wouldn't look the other way every time I come around. Oh, you don't know how it feels! She'd go out walking with me instead of that Virginian smart aleck who killed his grandpa. But just see how it is, though! She won't look at me! She won't even look at me!"
A whole world of bitterness dwelt in that cry of despair.
"If I was straight like you, she'd—she might love me. She might marry me. Just think of it, Dick! I might get her." With the inconsistency of the selfishly irrational he added: "I've got plenty of money. I could give her fine clothes and—But, oh, what's the use? She hates to look at me. I—I hurt her eyes—yes, I hurt her eyes!"
It was pitiful. Greed and avarice had made a hateful little monster of him, and yet a heart of stone would have been touched by the misery in his eyes, the anguish on his lips. Dick murmured helplessly: