A fellow who loves you.
That's me, Hester. I want to make a little home for you and protect you.
I can't promise you the money--right off, but I can promise you the
bigger something from the very start, Hester. Dear?"
She would not let her hand relax to his.
"I hate this town," she said.
"There's Cincinnati. Maybe my friend could find an opening there."
"Faugh!"
"Cincinnati, dear, is a metropolis."
"No, no! You don't understand. I hate littleness. Even little
metropolises. Cheapness. I hate little towns and little spenders
and mercerized stockings and cotton lisle next to my skin, and
machine-stitched nightgowns. Ugh! it scratches!"
"And I--I just love you in those starchy white shirt waists, Hester.
You're beautiful."
"That's just the trouble. It satisfies you, but it suffocates me. I've
got a pink-crepe-de-Chine soul. Pink crepe de Chine--you hear?"
He sat back on his heels.
"It--Is it true, then, Hester that--that you're making up with that
salesman from New York?"
"Why," she said, coloring--"why, I've only met him twice walking up High
Street, evenings!"
"But it _is_ true, isn't it, Hester?"
"Say, who was answering your questions this time last year?"
"But it _is_ true, isn't it, Hester? Isn't it?"
"Well, of all the nerve!"
But it was.
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