Jewel shrugged. She moved portentously to the foot of the bed, where she could look out of the second window. She knew quite well he had no intention of going. Looking out of the window, she waited calmly for him to work off the burden of his ill-temper.
“I don’t see why you wont let me hire you a decent place up-town,” he cried.
“Yer on’y tahkin’,” she said. “You ought to know by this time I’ll never take anything off you. Why, you fool, it’s on’y because you got no strings on me that you’re still wild about coming here!”
“How about you?”
She gave him her slow creased smile over a shoulder. “Well, if I ever git enough of you, I’ll let you give me a hundred thousand.”
“But this room!” he grumbled. “On the level . . . !”
“Suits me!” she said. “I wouldn’t change it for the Waldorf Astoria. I fixed my bed so’s I could lie in it all day if I wanted, and look into the street.”
“That’s why you’re so fat,” said Joe. “Gee! you’re fat!”
“Well, they tell me you can’t get too much of a good thing,” she said good-humoredly.
Joe dropped on the sofa, all of a piece. His legs and arms jerked restlessly. There was no guard on his sharp face, and the successive emotions flickered there, and gave place to each other, as inconsistently as in the face of a wild being. He looked at her savagely and cravenly. He snarled; and his whole face became suffused with a dark delight.