"You see," I said, "it's just a case of your word against his." "Oh! no;
but," she said eagerly, "he give me the note--I would not have taken it
if I 'ad not thought it good, would I? That is sure, isn't it? But five
pounds it is not my price. It must that I give 'im change! Those
gentlemen that heard my case, they are men of business, they must know
that it is not my price. If I could tell the judge--I think he is a man
of business too he would know that too, for sure. I am not so young. I
am not so veree beautiful as all that; he must see, mustn't he, sir?"
At my wits' end how to answer that most strange question, I stammered
out: "But, you know, your profession is outside the law."
At that a slow anger dyed her face. She looked down; then, suddenly
lifting one of her dirty, ungloved hands, she laid it on her breast with
the gesture of one baring to me the truth in her heart. "I am not a bad
woman," she said: "Dat beastly little man, he do the same as me--I am
free-woman, I am not a slave bound to do the same to-morrow night, no
more than he. Such like him make me what I am; he have all the pleasure,
I have all the work. He give me noding--he rob my poor money, and he
make me seem to strangers a bad woman. Oh, dear! I am not happy!"
The impulse I had been having to press on her the money, died within me;
I felt suddenly it would be another insult. From the movement of her
fingers about her heart I could not but see that this grief of hers was
not about the money. It was the inarticulate outburst of a bitter sense
of deep injustice; of all the dumb wondering at her own fate that went
about with her behind that broad stolid face and bosom. This loss of the
money was but a symbol of the furtive, hopeless insecurity she lived with
day and night, now forced into the light, for herself and all the world
to see. She felt it suddenly a bitter, unfair thing. This beastly
little man did not share her insecurity. None of us shared it--none of
us, who had brought her down to this. And, quite unable to explain to
her how natural and proper it all was, I only murmured: "I am sorry,
awfully sorry," and fled away.