“Well, what if it is?” she said defiantly, and then, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she went on, talking rapidly, as a woman will do when she is under a nervous strain:
“He’s going to do what you never thought of doing—he’s going to marry me and make me decent—if it ain’t too late. He’s going to meet me here at ten o’clock and we’re going to jump to the Coast. He’s got the coin, for he’s sold out his farm. He’s going to take me out there, and he says we are going to begin all over again; that I’ll have a good chance, for nobody will know where I came from. What do I get here? Nothing. If I’m sick I can go to the hospital or die in my room like a rat in a garret. I haven’t a friend in the world who would do anything for me on the level and for pure friendship’s sake. If I was to grow old to-morrow, I couldn’t get enough to buy a cup of coffee, and of all the good fellows I know there is only one who would walk across the street to do anything for me just because he liked me. You’re broke now, and you are wondering how you are going to get money, but you know down in your heart that you’re expecting me to get it for you. You’ve got a long wait, for I’ll not get it. I’m through, and that settles it.”
“So you’ve been meeting this fellow on the quiet, have you?” asked the one who was called Jack.
“No, I haven’t seen him for five years.”
“Don’t think you can kid me; how have you been framing things up then if you haven’t been meeting him?”
She gazed at him steadily for a moment as if she were shaping her course, and then she said:
“Well, I’ll just put you right for once. I suppose you’ve heard of the mail. Well, I’ve been getting letters from him, and here,” pulling one from a little handbag she carried, “is the last one.”
With a quick, deft movement he snatched it from her hand and opened it. At the first line he laughed loudly.
“He’s nutty, all right—he must have it bad. Listen to him:”
He began to read.