"There was no help for me. What could I do? I struggled from week to week; but debts, hunger, the need of clothes to put on my back, the luxury I saw around me!... One day I told a girl who worked in the store and was my friend that I would do whatever she advised ... and she took me to a house she knew...."
Nacha lowered her eyes, shame-faced.
"Did you live long in this fashion?" he asked when she had lapsed into silence.
"Six months! Then one day I couldn't stand it any longer: I left the store; and never went back to that house. I did sewing, I made artificial flowers; but ... I had no luck. I took any work that came my way; but there were always back debts to pay off ... and all the while every man who came near me made love to me. More than once I left my job in order to get away from them.... I hated them, feared them, loathed them. At last, after several years of this struggle, I got a job as waitress in a café. There I was more annoyed by men than ever; but I earned enough to be able to afford a decent room and some furniture of my own. And there I met Riga!"
"And then?"
"After I left him? I went down again, this time for good and all. It was then that Arnedo took me."
They were silent for a space. Nacha did not move. Wide-eyed, she sat staring straight in front of her. What did she see? What were her thoughts? Monsalvat, watching her with an intensity that he had never before experienced, thought the critical moment had come.
"Nacha," he said, "you must get out of all this!"
Without looking at him, she slowly shook her head.
"But your repentance...?"