"What do you think is going to become of you?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, after a deep sigh. "A girl doesn't have a fair
chance. I don't seem to be able to have any fun without getting into
trouble. I don't know what to think. It's all so black. I wish I was dead."

Her dreary tone put the deepest pathos into her words. Howard had seen
despondency in youth before--had felt it himself. But there had always
been a certain lightness in it. Here was a mere child who evidently
thought, and thought with reason, that there was no hope for her; and her
despair was not a passing cloud or storm, but a settled conviction.

"There doesn't seem to be any chance for a young girl," she repeated as if
that phrase summed up all that was weighing upon her. And Howard feared
that she, was right. Even the readiest of all commodities, advice, failed
him. "What can she do?" he thought. "If she has no home, worth speaking
of"--then he went on aloud:

"Haven't you friends?"

She laughed again with that slight moving of the lips and with eyes
mirthless. "Who wants me for a friend? Nobody'd think I was respectable.
And I guess I'm not so very. There's Nellie and her--friends. Oh, the girls
join in with the men to drag other girls down. But I won't do that. I don't
care what becomes of me--except that."

"Why?" he asked, curious for her explanation of this aversion.

"I don't know why," she replied. "There doesn't seem to be any good reason.
I've thought I would several times. And then--well, I just couldn't."