“I’m going home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there.” A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not intended to speak, but he could not help himself.
“Jill!” he cried. “It’s no good. I must say it! I want to get you out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on living this sort of life, when. … Why won’t you let me … ?”
He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.
They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.
“Wally,” said Jill at last.
She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.
“Yes?”
Jill hesitated.