“I—I d-don't want to travel a-alone, Peter,” she gasped.
Her look, her voice suddenly brought home to the man the amazing connotation of her words. He stared at her, felt his face grow warm with a sharp, peculiar embarrassment. He hardly knew what to say or do before her intent and piteous eyes.
“You—you mean you want m-me—to go with you, Cissie?” he stammered.
The girl suddenly began trembling, now that her last reserve of indirection had been torn away.
“Listen, Peter,” she began breathlessly. “I'm not the sort of woman you think. If I hadn't accused myself, we'd be married now. I—I wanted you more than anything in the world, Peter, but I did tell you. Surely, surely, Peter, that shows I am a good woman—th-the real I. Dear, dear Peter, there is a difference between a woman and her acts. Peter, you're the first man in all my life, in a-all my life who ever came to me k-kindly and gently; so I had to l-love you and t-tell you, Peter.”
The girl's wavering voice broke down completely; her face twisted with grief. She groped for her chair, sat down, buried her face in her arms on the table, and broke into a chattering outbreak of sobs that sounded like some sort of laughter.
Her shoulders shook; the light gleamed on her soft, black Caucasian hair. There was a little rent in one of the seams in her cheap jacket, at one of the curves
