“Who is this woman?” asked the blonde, languidly.
“I’m his wife, if you want to know,” was the retort, “and anyone would think you had no home by the way you hang around here.”
“Tell her to go away; she annoys me.”
That was enough for the girl. With one swift jerk the blonde was pulled to her feet, then a vicious right hook found its way to her jaw, and as she dropped to the floor the “meal ticket” walked away.
It was the first blow she had ever struck except in a friendly contest with the gloves, and it stirred her blood as nothing else had ever done.
It did another thing—it set her to thinking, and from that time on she began a course of good, hard training.
Something definite and tangible had become established in her mind and she was after it like a hound after a rabbit. She paid as little attention to him as if he had never existed, and he carried on his love affairs—very numerous ones they were, too—with a free hand. He became a hot proposition, and he blew like a drunken sailor on every girl who caught his fancy. She lived like an automaton, doing everything mechanically except the conditioning work she was engaged in. At every show they boxed together, and once in a while, when she would get a chance, she would whip in a hard one in order to lay bare his weak spots. One night she hit him in the stomach. It was a short, sharp, snappy punch, and she felt the shock of it up to her elbow.
He turned white under his grease paint and then wobbled back a couple of paces.
When they came together again he whispered savagely:
“Cut those out or I’ll hand you one the next time.”