"Where?"
"I don't know. I'm leaving where you found me. By the way, how did you know where to look for me, Butch?"
"Seen you one day when you was livin' in the Astoria Inn. There's a dairy lunch on the ground floor where I gen'ly eat. After that I kept an eye on you."
"Oh!" said Joan thoughtfully, wondering how much that eye had seen of the brief but lurid existence she had led before coming partially to her senses and moving to share Hattie Morrison's lodgings. "Well, I'll find a good place, and Edna can stay with me and act as my maid until she's old enough to find something to do for herself."
"On the stage, eh?"
"I guess so. I'm getting on, you know. Chances are I could give her a boost."
Butch shook his head: "Nothin' doin'."
"Why?"
He was unmoved by the flash of hostility in Joan's manner.
"I guess," he said after a deliberate pause, "we don't have to go into that. Anyway, I got other plans for Edna. She's goin' to the country, up-State, to spend the summer on a farm—family of a fellow I know. After that, if she's strong enough, she can come back and keep house for me, if she wants to, or go to work any way she chooses—that's not my business. Only—understand me—she isn't going to go into the chorus until she's old enough to know what she's doin', and strong enough to stand the racket. That's settled."