“Well, just this once,” she agreed. “It might be for the last time.”
“Nothing like that,” he assured her. “More you spend, more you make—that’s my motto.”
They waited for a city-bound car, sitting again on the bench that was so outspoken. “You furnish the girl, we furnish the home,” it shouted. He put his back against several of the bold words and felt of the bracelet-watch in his pocket.
“It might be the last time for me,” insisted the girl. “I feel as if I might die most any time. My health’s breaking down under the strain. I feel kind of a fever coming on right this minute.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go out.”
“Yes, I should.”
They boarded the car and reached the real restaurant, a cozy and discreet resort up a flight of carpeted stairs. Side by side on a seat that ran along the wall they sat at a table for two and the dinner was ordered. “Ruin yourself if you want to,” said the girl as her host included celery and olives in the menu. “Go on and order prunes, too, for all I care. I’m reckless. Maybe I’ll never have another dinner, the way this fever’s coming on. Feel my hand.”
Under the table she wormed her hand into his, and kept it there until food came. “Do my eyes look very feverish?” she asked.
“Not so very,” he assured her, covering an alarm he felt for the first time. She did appear to be feverish, and the anxiety of her manner deepened as the meal progressed. It developed quickly that she had but scant appetite for the choice food now being served. She could only taste bits here and there. Her plates were removed with their delicacies almost intact. Between courses her hand would seek his, gripping it as if in some nameless dread. He became worried about her state; his own appetite suffered.
Once she said as her hot hand clung to his, “I know where you’ll be to-morrow night.” Her voice grew mournful, despairing. “And I know perfectly well it’s no good asking you to stay away.”