e Marylin worked, to the long, lean
house in the long, lean street where she roomed, smelled of unfastidious
bedclothes airing on window sills; of garbage cans that repulsed even
high-legged cats; of petty tradesmen who, mysteriously enough, with
aerial clotheslines flapping their perpetually washings, worked and
sweated and even slept in the same sour garments. Facing her there on
these sidewalks of slops, and the unprivacy of stoops swarming with
enormous young mothers and puny old children, Getaway, with a certain
fox pointiness out in his face, squeezed her arm until she could feel
the bite of his elaborately manicured finger nails.

"Marry me, Marylin," he said, "and you'll wear diamonds."

In spite of herself, his bay-rummed nearness was not unpleasant to her.
"Cut it out--here, Getaway," she said through a blush.

He hooked her very close to him by the elbow, and together they crossed
through the crash of a street bifurcated by elevated tracks.

"You hear, Marylin," he shouted above the din. "Marry me and you'll wear
diamonds."

"Getaway, you're up to something again!"

"Whadda you mean?"

"Diamonds on your twenty a week! It can't be done."

His gaze lit up with the pointiness. "I tell you, Marylin, I can promise
you headlights!"

"How?"

"Never you bother your little head how; O.K., though."

"_How_, Getaway?"

"Oh--clean--if that's what's worrying you. Clean-cut."

"It _is_ worrying me."

"Saw one on a little Jane yesterday out to Belmont race track. A
fist-load for a little trick like her. And sparkle! Say, every time that
little Jane daubed some whitewash on her little nosie she gave that
grand stand the squints. That's what I'm going to do. Sparkle you up!
With a diamond engagement ring. Oh boy! How's that? A diamond engagement
ring!"

"Oh, Getaway!" she said, with her hand on the flutter of her throat and
closing her eyes as if to imprison the vision against her lids. "A pure
white one with lots of fire dancing around it." And little Marylin, who
didn't want to want it, actually kissed the bare dot on her left ring
finger where she could feel the burn of it, and there in the crowded
street, where he knew he was surest of his privacy with her, he stole a
kiss off that selfsame finger, too.

"I'll make their eyes hang out on their cheeks like grapes when they see
you coming along, Marylin."

"I love them because they're so clear--and clean! Mountain water that's
been filtered through pe