Billy and listened to Mercedes' wild flow of speech.

"Listen, my dear. I shall tell you about the world of men. Do not
be stupid like all your people, who think me foolish and a witch
with the evil eye. Ha! ha! When I think of silly Maggie Donahue
pulling the shawl across her baby's face when we pass each other
on the sidewalk! A witch I have been, 'tis true, but my witchery
was with men. Oh, I am wise, very wise, my dear. I shall tell you
of women's ways with men, and of men's ways with women, the best
of them and the worst of them. Of the brute that is in all men,
of the queerness of them that breaks the hearts of stupid women
who do not understand. And all women are stupid. I am not stupid.
La la, listen.

"I am an old woman. And like a woman, I'll not tell you how old I
am. Yet can I hold men. Yet would I hold men, toothless and a
hundred, my nose touching my chin. Not the young men. They were
mine in my young days. But the old men, as befits my years. And
well for me the power is mine. In all this world I am without kin
or cash. Only have I wisdom and memories--memories that are
ashes, but royal ashes, jeweled ashes. Old women, such as I,
starve and shiver, or accept the pauper's dole and the pauper's
shroud. Not I. I hold my man. True, 'tis only Barry Higgins--old
Barry, heavy, an ox, but a male man, my dear, and queer as all
men are queer. 'Tis true, he has one arm." She shrugged her
shoulders. "A compensation. He cannot beat me, and old bones are
tender when the round flesh thins to strings.

"But when I think of my wild young lovers, princes, mad with the
madness of youth! I have lived. It is enough. I regret nothing.