me."

"You," she cried, beating her small hands together, "oh, you--you--" and
then sat down, crying weakly. "Them days back there! Why, I--I was such a
kid it's just like they hadn't been! With her and my grandmother dead and
gone these twelve years, if it wasn't for you it's--it's like they'd never
been."

"Nobody was gladder 'n me, girl, to see how you made a bed for yourself.
I'm commendin' you, I am. That's just what I'm tryin' to tell you now,
girl. You was cut out to be somebody's kitten, and--"

"O God!" she sobbed into her handkerchief, "why didn't you take me when you
took him?"

"Now, now, Annie, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. A good-lookin' woman
like you 'ain't got nothing to worry about. Lemme order you up a drink.
You're gettin' weak again."

"No, no; I'm taking 'em too often. But they warm me. They warm me, and I'm
cold, Joe--cold."

"Then lemme--"

"No! No!"

He put out a short, broad hand toward her.

"Poor little--"

"I gotta go now, Joe. These rooms ain't mine no more."

He barred her path.

"Go where?"

'"Ain't I told you? I'm going out. Anybody that's willin' to work can get
it in this town. I ain't the softy you think I am."

He took her small black purse up from the table.

"What's your capital?"

"You--quit!"

"Ten--'leven--fourteen dollars and seventy-four cents."

"You gimme!"

"You can't cut no capers on that, girl."

"I--can work."

He dropped something in against the coins.

It clinked.

She sprang at him.

"No, no; not a cent from you--for myself. I--I didn't know you in them
days for nothing. I was only a kid, but I--I know you! I know. You gimme!
Gimme!"

He withheld it from her.

"Hold your horses, beauty! What I was then I am now, and I ain't ashamed of
it. Human, that's all. The best of us is only human before a pretty woman."

"You gimme!"

She had snatched up her small hand-satchel from the divan and stood
flashing now beside him, her small, blazing face only level with his
cravat.

"What you spittin' fire for? That wa'n't nothin' I slipped in but my
address, girl. When you need me call on me. 'The Liberty, 96.' Go right up
in the elevator, no questions asked. Get me?" he said, poking the small
purse into the V of her jacket. "Get me?"

"Oh, you--Woh--woh--woh!"

With her face flung back and twisted, and dodging his outflung arm, she was
down four flights of narrow, unused stairs and out. Once in the streets,
she walked with her fa