Jewel resumed her sewing. “It’s like this,” she said; “with all the other fellows I’ve known, I had to chuck a bluff, see? One kind of bluff or another. And they the same with me. Like an Irish jig, when you dance up to your partner and back. . . . But with you—though you’re only a boy, it’s different. . . . You belong to me, like.”
“The hell I do!” said Joe.
Jewel shrugged. “Not that my saying so, matters. Either it’s so or it isn’t so, and we can’t change it.”
“I t’ink you got Jewish blood, too,” said Joe, “That’s how they talk.”
“I do’ know what I got,” she said indifferently.
“The Jews are a great people,” said Joe; “when they chuck all that Jewish bunk, and get down to tacks. . . . But an old-fashioned Jew! Gee! Like my old man. A preachin’ Jew’s the limit!”
Jewel was not listening to this. The color of her eyes seemed to darken. “I know why it is,” she said. “With me . . . you forget yourself.”
“You forget yourself, too,” said Joe quickly.
“Oh, sure!” she said lightly. Joe perceived resentfully that she only said it to shut him up. “It’s great to be able to make a fellow like you lose himself,” she went on with a slow smile; she was honest enough then; “you’re so stuck on yourself!”
“Aah!” said Joe sorely. For the moment he could find no rejoinder; he studied her, looking for some way to get back at her. “You’ll get fat,” he said at length.