Milly was anything but ill when they went down the steps at last and headed west in the invigorating night air toward the Avenue. Milly continued her comment anent Mrs. Mosely and all Mrs. Mosely’s guests, comparing them to sundry “honest-to-God” folks up in Paris. Nathan was at last stung to remark:
“That was a rotten break you made! I should think your own intuitive good taste would have told you that those people think along a little higher plane than a stage hand changing his pants. That might be excellent humor for your father up in Gridley’s tannery. But in a New York drawing-room——”
“Well, Gridley’s tannery and Paris and my father are good enough for me! And you needn’t think you’re so all-fired high-brow, either. It wasn’t only a few years ago you was helpin’ skin cows right alongside my father.”
“I didn’t do it from choice. I was made to do it.”
“I suppose you’ll be telling me next that a continual bill of fare of the ‘class’ we had to-night is what you’d ‘like from choice’?”
“Certainly it is! You bet it is! And I intend to have it—if it’s possible to get.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Nathan Forge, you’ll have it without me! If that’s ‘high-brow’, then gimme the ‘flats,’ where people live natural and enjoy themselves!”
“What do you mean—you’ll have it without me?”
“Just what I said. I’ll go back to Ma—for good. Oh, I guess I can earn my own living again! I did it once, remember. You used to say I was the smartest girl in the box-shop—once!” And Milly began to sob openly as she trotted along by Nathan’s side. Pedestrians on the Avenue turned and stared.