“Eighteen!” and she rose in astonishment. “I?”
“You—though you don’t look it. You always were small for your age, so I just told you a white lie about it in order to manage you better. But that is over; I don’t care what you do in the future. All I want of you is money to get to South America; so fix it up for me.”
“I ought to refuse, and call them in to arrest you.”
“But you won’t,” he rejoined. “You can’t afford it.”
He watched her, though, with some uncertainty, as she sat silent, thinking.
“No, I can’t afford it,” she said, at last. “I will be doing wrong to help you, just as if I let a poison snake loose where people travel—for that is what you are. But I am not strong enough to let these friends go and start over again; so I will help you away this once.”
He drew a breath of relief, and gathered up his blanket. 256
“That is the way to talk. You’ve got a level head—”
“That will do,” she said, curtly. “I don’t want praise from a coward, a thief, or a murderer. You are all three. I have no money here. You will have to come again for it to-morrow night.”
“A trick—is it?”