"You see
you belong to my class, little girl, and--and you are the first of them
to speak a kind word to me in five years. It's--it's a bit tough to be
cut dead by your own class."
It was her hand, white and slender, which reached shyly across the table,
and touched mine, but her eyes alone made answer.
"That is all right," I continued, my voice shaking. "I understand how
you feel. Anyhow you 've made a new man out of me; maybe the stuff is
n't much, but there is a soul in it somewhere, and you 've given that
soul something to get a grip on. That was all I needed, just to get my
teeth set. But what about you? This is no fit place for your kind--you
better go home to your mother."
She shook her head with decision.
"Why not? is she hard?"
"Yes, she would be very hard with me."
"Do you mean you would rather risk it here with--with me, than go back,
and face her?"
"Yes, even that," she replied soberly. "I have courage to fight it out
here, but not there. I know what it will mean if I go back--reproaches,
gossip, ostracism--all the petty meannesses of a small town. I loathe
the very thought. I am strong again, and I will not go. It is between
God and me, this decision; between God and me." She drooped her head,
hiding her face upon her arms, her shoulders trembling.
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