Her tone was hurt as she said:
“I only want to help you. I know you’re hard up. I pay some of my models ten dollars an hour.”
Remembering how she had spoken of her father, Edwin felt that he had been a brute, and he said:
“I’m very sorry. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful. Perhaps it is foolish of me to care about . . . some things; but I do. I think you’d better not stand out here any longer; it’s beginning to snow; you’ll catch your death of cold.”
Her eyes lingered on his.
“Would you care?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “After all, you are a human being.”
He thought there was hardness in her laugh.
“Thanks,” she said. “Then you won’t come?”
“I cannot,” he said.