The girl flushed a little and lowered her eyes. “I see that now,” she said meekly. “I didn’t know how bad it looked. But I won’t do it any more. And I’ll go straight home every night and stay there. And I’ll give up cigarettes if you say so, Eddie—I’ll cut ’em out from this minute on.”
Cork’s air became judicial, proprietary, condemnatory, yet sympathetic. “A lady can smoke,” he decided, slowly, “at times and places. Why? Because it’s bein’ a lady that helps her pull it off.”
“I’m going to quit. There’s nothing to it,” said the girl. She flicked the stub of her cigarette to the floor.
“At times and places,” repeated Cork. “When I call round for you of evenin’s we’ll hunt out a dark bench in Stuyvesant Square and have a puff or two. But no more Rooney’s at one o’clock—see?”
“Eddie, do you really like me?” The girl searched his hard but frank features eagerly with anxious eyes.
“On the dead level.”
“When are you coming to see me—where I live?”
“Thursday—day after to-morrow evenin’. That suit you?”
“Fine. I’ll be ready for you. Come about seven. Walk to the door with me to-night and I’ll show you where I live. Don’t forget, now. And don’t you go to see any other girls before then, mister! I bet you will, though.”
“On the dead level,” said Cork, “you make ’em all look like rag-dolls to me. Honest, you do. I know when I’m suited. On the dead level, I do.”