“Listen,” he begged, “don’t run away with that idea. I thought we might go to a theater afterward. I didn’t think so much about where we were going as I did that I was coming to you. I didn’t have anything better than this to put on, and so I came this way.”
A moment before it had seemed the most righteous and perfect thing under heaven to vent a few scathing remarks, but now she felt twisted and diminished. Long and religiously she had tried to keep her rages to herself. Neither spoke while the plates were being served, and then he said:
“I was horribly out of true, in telling these people how to do it, but I wanted it good for you,” he added simply.
She looked at him hard, but the intensity of her trying that instant kept her from reading what was really back of his eyes.
“It’s plenty good enough for me,” she said. “I came here once when I had only twenty cents to live on that day—I remember the stool, that fifth stool, I sat on. I spent my twenty cents all at once,” she added, “and the grub was so good that I could have wept in the arms of the woman on the other side of the counter.”
“Was that when you were working in the factory?” he asked.
“No,” said Pidge, “it was before I got the job. I ate regularly after that.”
“Where was the factory?”
“Oh, way up in the other end of town. I labeled tins, salmon tins, baking powder tins, cocoa tins.”
“To get local color?” he asked.