She was watching him gravely. She had never seen him just like this.
Nothing else, perhaps, could have shown her so well what a broken reed he
was.
"I got you in wrong. You were a good girl before I knew you. You're a good
girl now. I'm not going to do you any harm, I swear it. I only wanted to
take you out for a good time. I've got money. Look here!" He drew out the
roll of bills and showed it to her. Her eyes opened wide. She had never
known him to have much money.
"Lots more where that comes from."
A new look flashed into her eyes, not cupidity, but purpose.
She was instantly cunning.
"Aren't you going to give me some of that?"
"What for?"
"I--I want some clothes."
The very drunk have the intuition sometimes of savages or brute beasts.
"You lie."
"I want it for Johnny Rosenfeld."
He thrust it back into his pocket, but his hand retained its grasp of it.
"That's it," he complained. "Don't lemme be happy for a minute! Throw it
all up to me!"
"You give me that for the Rosenfeld boy, and I'll go out with you."
"If I give you all that, I won't have any money to go out with!"
But his eyes were wavering. She could see victory.
"Take off enough for the evening."
But he drew himself up.
"I'm no piker," he said largely. "Whole hog or nothing. Take it."
He held it out to her, and from another pocket produced the eighty dollars,
in crushed and wrinkled notes.
"It's my lucky day," he said thickly. "Plenty more where this came from.
Do anything for you. Give it to the little devil. I--" He yawned. "God,
this place is hot!"
His head dropped back on his chair; he propped his sagging legs on a stool.
She knew him--knew that he would sleep almost all night. She would have to
make up something to tell the other girls; but no matter--she could attend
to that later.
She had never had a thousand dollars in her hands before. It seemed
smaller than that amount. Perhaps he had lied to her. She paused, in
pinning on her hat, to count the bills. It was all there.