Kirwin broke this silence. He leaned nearer the girl; his voice was very kind as he spoke to her.
“You shouldn’t have come out here. No girl should come out here so long as she can make a cent in the States.”
“Dance halls in the States are supposed to be respectable. They’ll keep girls on that they suspect a lot about; but they bounce her as soon as all the people outside the business know about her. See? Everybody who went to dance halls in New York knew I’d left on that contract; I’d been such a fool I’d told it all around, trusting Teddy and his friend as I did. That closed the doors of every place I tried to get an engagement. I’ve chased half way round the world, now, trying to get to some place where they couldn’t find out about it. San Anton—’Frisco—Honolulu—I’ve tried ’em all. And I’ve sloped out of all of ’em for the same reason. Running away from the flag, I was, instead of following it like the cocktails did. Somebody’d always show up who was there that night in Colon, or who had heard about it; and nobody believed my tale. I don’t blame ’em! I wouldn’t have believed it if any girl had tried to pass off on me that she’d been such a fool. Girls like me are supposed to know their way around. But I’d been too smashed on Teddy to see straight. That was my one big mistake: to get soft on him. Girls like me can’t afford to care for a man.
“It did me one good turn—that jolt at Colon. It knocked Teddy out of my head. I couldn’t help seeing the difference between him and the engineer fellow.”
She absently stirred the sediment at the bottom of her glass.
“Listen: now I’ve told you all this—there’s one more thing I want to tell you—I’ve walked straight, even out here. You believe me?” Her voice was tense.
Kirwin and Angier spoke at once. “Yes!”
“I wish I could see that engineer fellow again, and tell him that, too. He did a lot for me.”
The rattle of the trap drum, the bellow of the brasses rose above the storm that still raged outside. The rain beat on the roof in rivalry with the drum.
“Nice night to be getting back to the Tondo in a shaky carromata!” said Mary Casey. “But it’s near closing time. You can tell by the state of the chinks’ camisas. When they are soaked through, it’s early morning. Chinks don’t heat up as soon as other men. Ain’t they a sweet lot? And heavy on their feet! Oof!” She lifted one slippered foot and rubbed it tenderly.