"But you've got to listen to me!" he insisted, desperately. "I tell you there ain't anything between Marie and me."
"Then there ought to be." Thus Molly. Womanlike she yearned to use her claws.
"But—"
"Oh, I've heard all about your carryings on with that—creature; how you talk to her, and people have seen you walking with her on the street. I saw you myself. Yesterday when Mis' Jackson drove out here to buy three hens she told me when the girl was arrested and fined for trying to murder a man you stepped up and paid her fine. Did you?"
"I did. But—"
"There aren't any buts! You've got a nerve, you have, making love to me after running round with that wretched hussy!"
"She ain't a hussy!" denied the exasperated Racey, who was always loyal to absent friends. "She's all right. Just because she happens to be a lookout in the Happy Heart ain't anything against her. It don't give you nor anybody else license to insult her."
This was too much. Not content with confessing his friendship for the girl, he was standing up for her. Molly whirled upon him.
"Go!" Tone and business could not have been excelled by Peg Woffington herself.
Racey went.