“That’s more impossible than liking you, since you won’t let me have my only wish.”
“It’s too brutal, I tell you. And it’s getting too cold. It would simply ruin your perfect skin. I don’t want to marry a longshoreman, thank you.”
“Then I’ll thank you to go on home. I’m tired out. I’ve got to get up in the morning at the screech of dawn and take up your ghastly drudgery again.”
“If you’ll marry me you won’t have to work at all.”
“But work is the one thing I want. So if you’ll kindly take yourself off I’ll be much obliged. You’ve no business here, anyway, and it’s getting so late that you’ll have all the neighbors talking.”
“A lot I care!”
“Well, I care a lot,” she said, blandly belying her words to Abbie. “I’ve got to live among them.”
It was a miserable ending to an evening of such promise. He felt as sheepish as a cub turned out of his best girl’s house by a sleepy parent, but he had no choice. He rose drearily, fought his way into his overcoat, and growled:
“Good night!”