"Well, don't worry about it any more, Lil. You needn't worry about me leaving you."
Lillian sighed with exasperation. "I don't think you're going to leave me," she said. "But that's got nothing to do with the case. I'm talking about Louise pitying me because I ain't respectable and certain of my future."
"Well, you can be certain of your future. I'm not going to leave you, I told you."
"Jees, you're turning this into a scene in which I beg you not to leave me! Shall I get on my knees? Don't you see that if you and I live together till we die of old age, I'll always be in the same position? I'll always be some one for married girls to pity. Cripes, Mary and Theresa probably pity me, too. Any damn fool with a marriage certificate can feel sorry for me even if she's married to some plug who can't buy her a pack of safety pins."
Hubert's face puckered into an expression of pain as he pulled off his shoe. He stood it under the couch with the heel pointing outward and regarded it interestedly for a moment or two before beginning on the next shoe.
"I wouldn't care," Lillian proceeded, "if Louise was somebody who had a right to be sorry for my soul. If she was a sweet innocent or something like that. But she's got the crust to be married for a couple of months and come rushing and telling me that I'm miserable because we're not respectable. And the idea, her saying that she never was happy till she got married."
Hubert was having a little difficulty in getting the
