“You’d better not stay here with a hundred and twenty dollars in your pocket.”
“I shan’t take money from you.”
“Do you want me to lose five hundred dollars?”
“How?” she asked, bewildered by the sudden impatience in his voice.
“If I write the story I get six hundred. I won’t write it unless you take your commission.”
She said nothing.
“Come,” he said, almost sharply. “I’m not going to leave you here. You need a bath, anyway. You can’t get a good rest unless you have a bath.”
He sprang up from the grass, took her hand before she could withdraw it, and drew her forcibly to her feet.
“Maybe you’re twenty,” he said, “but some cop is likely to take you to the Arsenal as a lost child.”
She seemed so startled that he reassured her with a smile,—stooped to pick up her hat and satchel, still smiling.