"Can't you stay over night, Jerome? We can make room."
"I must catch the next train back ... I'm off now ... there's the taxi I arranged to have come and take me ... it's out there now ... good-bye, Johnny, and God help you and your little girl."
Hildreth came in soon after Miller's departure, looking like a fresh-faced girl of twelve.
"Did—did your friend think I was good-looking?"
"Yes, I am sure he thoroughly approved of you."
"To-morrow another Roman holiday begins."
The result of that interview was worse than I could have surmised. All the batteries opened fire again. The Kansas papers called me "the shameless tramp" ... reporters spilled from autos and rigs all over the front stoop. After giving a few more interviews in the mad hope that this time they would get it straight, I saw that the harvest was even greater abuse and defamation ... and, as Hildreth had predicted, she came in for more than her share of the moral indignation of people who sold that precious ware at so much a line, or were paid salaries for such work....
We practically deserted our house so the reporters could not find us....