She searched Alison's face, wistfully.
“I could have loved you.”
“And can you not—still?”
Kate Mercy did not answer the question.
“It is because you understand,” she said. “You're like those I've come to know—here. And you're like him.... I don't mean in looks. He, too, was good—and square.” She spoke the words a little defiantly, as though challenging the verdict of the world. “And he wouldn't have been wild if he could have got going straight.”
“I know,” said Alison, in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Kate Mercy, “you look as if you did. He thought a lot of you, he said he was only beginning to find out what you was. I'd like you to think as well of me as you can.”
“I could not think better,” Alison replied.
Kate Mercy shook her head.
“I got about as low as any woman ever got,” she said