"You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail."
"What about Locasto?" I asked.
"I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's interested elsewhere."
"And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?"
"Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take care of myself. You remember the frightened cry-baby I used to be—well, I've learned to hold my own."
She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every act of her expressed a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once again I entreated her.
"Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear."
"Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life. Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think I'm very bad, am I?"
"You're as good as gold."
"For your sake I'll always try to be," she answered.