That was Madge Allan’s philosophy of life, take a chance.
“Madge would do it,” Nan told herself as she hugged the old robe around her white throat to keep out the chill.
She read the letter again, a tight feeling in her throat.
“⸺have never been in Lobo Wells—have never known your uncle personally.”
She dropped the letter in her lap. Who would know? Nobody in Lobo Wells. Something was telling her to take a chance. It hammered in her ears above the moaning of the fog-horns.
Take a chance, take a chance, take a chance.
It was like the clicking of car wheels on a railroad track. Ahead of her was the hard, dreary round of job-seeking, the pitifully few dollars in her pocket, no place to call home.
She carefully folded up the letter and cheque, put them in her purse. She felt weak and foolish over it all. Her face was white in the cheap mirror over the dresser.
“If they throw you in jail you won’t have to pay rent,” she told herself. “They don’t have landladies in jails—not to make collections. Anyway, I wouldn’t be stealing from live people. Her uncle is dead and Madge is dead. A dead woman’s shoes!”
Nan crept back into bed after turning off the gas jet. She forgot that on the morrow she would be minus a bed. The horrors of job-hunting were also forgotten. She was wondering whether a medium-sized, red-headed girl could substitute for a tall, willowy blonde in Arizona.