such
closeness into his eyes that they seemed to merge into one. "Haven't you
got your Loo? Haven't you got her?"

He sprang up at that, jerking her backward, and all the purple-red gushed
up into his face again.

"Yes, by God, I've got you! I'll break the will. I'll--"

"Charley, no--no! He'd rise out of his grave at you. It's never been known
where a will was broke where they didn't rise out of the grave to haunt."

He took her squarely by the shoulders, the tears running in furrows down
his face.

"I'll get you out of this, Loo. No girl in God's world will have to find
herself tied up to me without I can show her a million dollars every time
she remembers that she's married to a rotter. I'll get you out of this,
girl, so you won't even show a scratch. I'll--"

"Charley," she said, lifting herself by his coat lapels, and her eyes again
so closely level with his, "you're crazy with the heat--stark, raving
crazy! You got your chance, boy, to show what you're made of--can't you see
that? We're going West, where men get swept out with clean air and clean
living. We'll break ground in this here life for the kind of pay-dirt
that'll make a man of you. You hear? A man of you!"

He lifted her arms, and because they were pressing insistently down,
squirmed out from beneath them.

"You're a good sport, girl; nobody can take that from you. But just the
same, I'm going to let you off without a scratch."

"'Good sport'! I'd like to know, anyways, where I come in with all your
solid-gold talk. Me that's stood behind somebody-or-other's counter ever
since I had my working-papers."

"I'll get you out of--"

"Have I ever lived anywheres except in a dirty little North St. Louis flat
with us three girls in a bed? Haven't I got my name all over town for
speed, just because I've always had to rustle out and try to learn how
to flatten out a dime to the size of a dollar? Where do I come in on the
solid-gold talk, I'd like to know. I'm the penny-splitter of the world, the
girl that made the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store millinery department famous. I
can look tailor-made on a five-dollar bill and a tissue-paper pattern. Why,
honey, with me scheming for you, starting out on your own is going to make
a man of you. You got stuff in you. I knew it, Charley, the first night
you spied me at the Highlands dance. Somewhere out West Charley Cox is now
going to begin to show 'em the stuff in Charley Cox--that's what Charley
Cox & Co. are goin