"Do you know something?" he began. "I think you have it pretty hard around here."
"I?" Lulu was genuinely astonished.
"Yes, sir. Do you have to work like this all the time? I guess you won't mind my asking."
"Well, I ought to work. I have a home with them. Mother too."
"Yes, but glory. You ought to have some kind of a life of your own. You want it, too. You told me you did—that first day."
She was silent. Again he was investing her with a longing which she had never really had, until he had planted that longing. She had wanted she knew not what. Now she accepted the dim, the romantic interest of this rôle.
"I guess you don't see how it seems," he said, "to me, coming along—a stranger so. I don't like it."
He frowned, regarded the river, flicked away ashes, his diamond obediently shining. Lulu's look, her head drooping, had the liquid air of the look of a young girl. For the first time in her life she was feeling her helplessness. It intoxicated her.
"They're very good to me," she said.
He turned. "Do you know why you think that? Because you've never had anybody really good to you. That's why."