In the restaurant he had many conversations with Blanche. “How long will you stay here?” she asked him once.
“Always, I suppose,” he said.
“But this is only a boom town,” she answered. “Next year there will be no one here but the Siwashes, and they will be quarreling among themselves for these buildings.”
“I’ll stay,” persisted Harrison.
“But how can you live? Coughlin is going down the river this summer, and a man must eat. Why don’t you come along with the rest of us? He’ll take everybody that is working here, for he means to open up again in the Yukon country.” Harrison shook his head.
To Blanche he was interesting. Even in the depths to which she had fallen, or rather deliberately descended, there exists an unconfessed desire for the better things of the past, for the moral levels which have been derided and deserted, for the things which are bitter with the sourness of the grapes the fox could not attain to; and to talk with Harrison was a breath from the old world, monotonous, perhaps, but lovable, where she, too ... but she never thought of those things. What was the use? It made her sad, and she would undoubtedly drink more than usual, and get reckless, and buy wine with her salary and percentage money, and be in debt to the house for a month afterward. So she didn’t think much. It didn’t ever occur to her that her interest in Harrison was passing the danger line. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.
A month later, Coughlin announced that the Comique would have a grand closing one week from that night. “The money is about through in this town,” he said, in explanation. “We’ll move on to the gold mines.”
Blanche discussed it that evening with Harrison in the restaurant The news disturbed him.
“You’ll come, too?” she said. He didn’t know. “There’ll be nothing here,” she went on, “and it will be so lonely.”