“I remember my Solomon,” she said, trying to laugh lightly, for there had been a faint but disconcerting sense of effort in her protestation. “'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred there with.' Besides, you forget another important matter. I am now a homeless, penniless outcast. I am not sacrificing anything. It is very kind of you to offer to take me in and shelter me.”
“These are sophistries,” said Jimmie, with a laugh. “You gave up all on my account.”
“But I am really penniless,” she said, ignoring his argument. “Anch' io son pittore. I too have felt the pinch of poverty.”
“You?”
She revealed her financial position—the overdraft at the bank, the shilling between herself and starvation. Were it not for Connie, she would have to sing in the streets. She alluded thoughtlessly, with her class's notions as to the value of money, to her “miserable two hundred a year.”
“Two hundred a year!” cried Jimmie. “Why, that's a fortune!”
His tone struck a sudden chill through her. He genuinely regarded the paltry sum as untold riches. She struggled desperately down to his point of view.
“Perhaps it may come in useful for us,” she said lamely.
“I should think it will! Why did n't you tell me before?”
“Have you never thought I might have a little of my own?” she asked with a touch of her old hardness.