I sat still, wondering what to say.
"We moved in there with his mother and father," Lena said. "His father was good to me; but he was sick and just one more to take care of. His mother—well, I know it was hard for her, but she was bound I should do everything her way. She was a grand good housekeeper—and I ain't. I hate it. She got the rheumatism and sat in her chair all day and told me how. I tell you I couldn't stand it—"
Her voice got shrill, and I thought she was going to cry. But she just threw back her head and looked at me.
"And now in seven months," she said, "something else. That was the last straw. I says now I'd never get out. I've come up here for the last good time I may ever have. If Luke won't take me back, he needn't. I don't care what becomes of me anyway."
"Oh, Lena," I said.
"Don't you go giving yourself airs," she said. "You got away. We've heard about your school and your smartness. But supposin' you hadn't. Do you think you'd have stayed in Luke's mother's kitchen slavin'?"
"No, Lena," I said. "I honestly don't think I would."
The gas without any burner flickered over the big-figured carpets and chairs and table cover, the mussy paper flowers and the rusty gas stove and the crayon portraits. I almost felt as if I were there in Lena's place.
"I s'pose, though, you're goin' to tell me to go back," she said. "Well, best spare your breath."
It came to me what I had to do, just as simply as things almost always come.