against Maison's will.

"Why didn't you introduce me, dearie?" she says. "I kind a thought you'd
pick up that bird!"

"I didn't pick him up. I turned him down!" I snapped. But Maison kidded
me the whole three hours while we was in the beauty-parlours getting
waived and manicured.

IV

Then we had a nice wholesome little lunch lasting only three hours and
comparatively quiet and by ourselves, seeing there was only Goldringer
and Ruby Roselle and Maison and Freddy and O'Flarety, our leading
juvenile who had turned up, and Mr. Sternberger and a friend of Ma's
which used to be in the circus with her, and Ma and myself. And all the
way through I watched Ma kind of anxiously, for she only toyed with a
little salad and passed up everything else. I was by this time really
scared she would be haggard or something, but she looked fine, and not
a word of complaint out of her, only toward four o'clock she got kind of
restless, and so did I, so we excused ourselves, and walked to the door
together.

"You needn't come along with me, Mary Gilligan," she says. "I want to
walk real fast."

I looked at her sort of surprised at that, but at the time the queerness
didn't really sink in. And I was so wore out I was actually glad to let
her go alone and personally, myself, I took one of those overgrown
baby-carriages or rolling chairs which I thought a healthy young person
like myself would never come to, and sank into it like the poor weary
soul I was, and let the coon tuck me in like a six-months-old, and off
we went as fast as a snail.

Well it was pleasanter than I had thought it would be and I got kind of
drowsy and dreamy and somehow I couldnt help but think of Captain
Raymond and how refined and nice he was and how my fame and beauty had
captured him to the extent that it had almost made him forget to act
like a gentleman, and how he persisted like a regular story book hero.
And I wondered if he would shoot himself on my account, and that threw a
awful scare into me, for handsome women have a terrible responsibility
in the way they treat men. And I wondered was I really doing the right
thing, taking such a risk by treating him so sever and not speaking and
here he was in the service of his country and all and Gawd knows I might
be wrecking his whole life from then on. And furthermore I thought how
hard it is to be refined and what a lot a person has to sacrifice to it,
and that the roughnecks of this world seem to have mos