“This is a nice place, ain't it?” she observed. “I furnished it when I was on velvet—nothing was too good for me. Money's like champagne when you take the cork out, it won't keep. I was rich once. It was lively while it lasted,” she added, with a sigh: “I've struck the down trail. I oughtn't, by rights, to be here fooling with you. There's nothing in it.” She glanced at the clock. “I ought to get busy.”
As the realization of her meaning came to him, he quivered.
“Is there no way but that?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Say, you're not a-goin' to preach, are you?”
“No,” he answered, “God forbid! I was not asking the question of you.”
She stared at him.
“Of who, then?”
He was silent.
“You've left me at the station. But on the level, you don't seem to know much, that's a fact. You don't think the man who owns these flats is in it for charity, do you? 'Single ladies,' like me, have to give up. And then there are other little grafts that wouldn't interest you. What church do you come from anyway?”
“You mentioned it a little while ago.”