"I never talk this way to other girls. They'd think I'm workin up
to designs on 'em. They make me sick the way they're always
lookin' for them designs. But you're different I can talk to you
that way. I know I've got to. It's the square thing. You're like
Billy Murphy, or any other man a man can talk to."

She sighed with a great happiness, and looked at him with
unconscious, love-shining eyes.

"It's the same way with me," she said. "The fellows I've run with
I've never dared let talk about such things, because I knew
they'd take advantage of it. Why, all the time, with them, I've a
feeling that we're cheating and lying to each other, playing a
game like at a masquerade ball." She paused for a moment,
hesitant and debating, then went on in a queer low voice. "I
haven't been asleep. I've seen . . . and heard. I've had my chances,
when I was that tired of the laundry I'd have done almost
anything. I could have got those fancy shirtwaists . . . an' all the
rest . . . and maybe a horse to ride. There was a bank cashier . . .
married, too, if you please. He talked to me straight out. I
didn't count, you know. I wasn't a girl, with a girl's feelings,
or anything. I was nobody. It was just like a business talk. I
learned about men from him. He told me what he'd do. He . . ."

Her voice died away in sadness, and in the silence she could hear
Billy grit his teeth.

"You can't tell me," he cried. "I know. It's a dirty world--an
unfair, lousy world. I can't make it out. They's no squareness in
it.--Women, with the best that's in 'em, bought an' sold like