"What are you saying, 'Poor Josefa,' about? I thought you didn't know him particularly well."
"I didn't. Oh, Señor Strawbridge, everything is so horrible here!... so terrible!... Oh.... Oh ..." and suddenly the señora began to weep, a pathetic little figure in her nun's costume.
Something clutched the drummer's diaphragm. He leaned toward her.
"Señora!" he remonstrated. "What's the matter? Have I done anything?"
One arm was crumpled about her face, she stretched the other toward him.
"Oh, no, no! you've done nothing to me. I ... I thought I was getting used to it. I used to cry all the time when I first came here. I thought I was growing hard, but I suppose I'm not."
The drummer was tingling at the appeal in her attitude and of her hand which had caught two of his fingers. A faint pulse began murmuring in his ears. He wanted to pick the whole of her daintiness up in his arms and comfort her.
"For God's sake, what do you mean?" he begged.
The girl collected herself.
"I will tell you," she said in a low tone. "There, sit closer, please, so I can talk in a low tone. Don't make any noise, señor."