"God forgive him! yes," he said, and his own eyes grew troubled and sympathetic.
"God may forgave him if he's a mind to," exclaimed Francis, "but I don't want no such God around me, if he does. Any God that wants to forgive men for such work as that ain't fit to associate with no other kind of folks but such men; but I don't mean to allow a good little girl like Ettie to live in the same house with a beast if I know it. She shan't go home again now, not if her pa begs on his knees. He ain't fit to wipe her shoes. 'N my pa!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "My pa talkin' about Ettie being bad, and settin' bad examples for decent girls! Him a talkin'! Him livin' in the same house with my little sister 'n me! Him!" The girl was wrought to a frenzy of scorn, and contempt, and anger. They had passed out with the rest into the street.
"Shall I walk home with you?" asked Avery. "Are you alone?"
"Yes, I'm alone," she said, with a little dry sob. "I'm alone, an' I ain't goin' home any more. Not while he lives there. It's no decent place for a girl—living in the house with a man like that. I ain't goin' home. I'm goin' to—" It rushed over her brain that she had no other place to go. She held her purse in her hand; it had only two dollars and a few cents in it. She had bought her new dress with the rest. Her step faltered, but her eyes were as fiery and as hard as ever.
"You'd better go home," said Avery, softly. "It will only be the harder for you, if you don't. I'm sorry—"
She turned on him like a tigress. They were in Union Square now. "Even you think it is all right for good girls to be under the control and live with men like that! Even you think I ought to go home, an' let him boss me an' make rules fer me, an' me pretend to like it an believe as he does, an' look up to him, an' think his way's right an' best! Even you!"
"No, no," said Avery, softly. "You must be fair, Miss King. I don't think it's right; but—but—I said it was best just now, for—what else can you do?" The girl was facing him as they stood near the fountain in the middle of the square.
"That's just what I was meaning to show to-night when I said what I did to the club, of the financial dependence of women; it is their destruction; it destroys their self-respect; it forces them to accept a moral companionship which they'd scorn if they dared; it forces them to seem to condone and uphold such things themselves; it forces them to be the companions and subordinates of degraded moral natures, that hold wives and daughters to a code which they will not apply to themselves, and which they seek to make void for other wives and daughters; it—" "You told me to go home," she said, stubbornly. "I'm not goin'! I make money enough to live on. I always spent it on—on things to wear; but—but I can live on it, an' I'm goin' to. I ain't goin' to live in the house with no such a man. He ain't fit to live with. I won't tell ma an' the girls—yet; not till—"
She paused, and peered toward the clock in the face of the great stone building across the street. "Do you think it's too late fer me t' talk a minute with Miss Gertrude?" she asked, with her direct gaze, again. "She'd let me stay there one night, I guess, n' she'd tell me—I c'd talk to her some."
"If you won't go home," he said, slowly, "I suppose it would be best for you to go there, but—it is rather late. Go home for to-night, Miss Francis! I wish you would. Think it over to-night, please. Let me take you home to-night. Go to Miss Gertrude to-morrow, and talk it over." His tone had grown gentle and more tender than he knew. He took the hand she had placed on his arm in his own, and tried to turn toward her street. She held stubbornly back. "For my sake, to please me—because I think it is best—won't you go home to-night?" She looked at him again, and a haze came in her eyes. She did not trust herself to speak, but she turned toward her own street, and they walked silently down the square. His hand still held her own as it lay on his arm.