"All right, then. Say, 'I love you,' and you can buy pearls for me, if
you want to."
He gave me a deep look that made me thrill, and I drew back from his
hand. He said in a low voice:
"You can have the pearls, anyway."
"But I'd rather have the words," I stammered, now ashamed of myself,
and confused under his look.
"Consider them said, then," he said, and he laughed. I couldn't bear
him to laugh at me, and I said:
"You don't mean it. I made you say it, and therefore it has no meaning.
I wish it were true."
"Perhaps it is," he said.
"Is it?" I demanded eagerly.
"Who knows?" said he.
Lolly came in then. She did not seem at all pleased to see Mr. Hamilton
there, and he left soon after. When he was gone, she told me I was a
very silly girl to have taken him into my room. I told her I hadn't;
that he had just walked in. Lolly asked me, virtuously, whether I had
ever seen _her_ let a man go in there, and I confessed I had not. She
wanted to know whether I had told Mr. Hamilton about Dick. Indeed, I
had not! The thought of telling him frightened me, and I besought Lolly
not to betray me. Also I took off Dick's ring. I intended to send it
back to him. It was impossible for me to be engaged to him now.
Lolly said if she were I, she wouldn't let Mr. Hamilton buy clothes
for her. She said once he started to do that, he would expect to pay
for everything for me, and then, said Lolly, the first thing I knew,
people would be saying that he was "keeping" me. She said that I
could take dinners, flowers, even jewels from a man,--though in "high
society" girls couldn't even do that; but working-girls were more
free,--and I could go to the theater and to other places with him;
but it was a fatal step when a man began to pay for a girl's room and
clothes. Lolly added that once she had let a man do that for her,
and--She blew out a long whiff of smoke from her lips, saying, "Never
more!" with her hand held solemnly up.
So then I decided I couldn't let him do it, and I felt very sorry that
I had even weakened a little bit in my original resolve not to let him
spend money on me. I went to sleep troubled about the matter.