of borrowing from Carl Feldman or the McKays or any of the dozen guys I know well, but I'll be damned, Lil, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just couldn't. I wanted to, but I kept thinking of what my old man used to say and I swear I couldn't bring myself to going near one of them. They'd have given it to me. I know they would have, but I just couldn't ask."
"Well," said Lillian after a moment of thought, "if that's the way you are, you just are. I understand all right. It don't sound silly to me. I can figure people having funny little ideas. Only you feeling so rotten and all, I did hope that you would get some money. You wouldn't ask Helen, I suppose."
"That would be the same thing, Lil. Borrowing from her would be just like borrowing from anybody else. And worse because she's a woman."
"Yeh, that's right."
Lillian sat down. She looked at Hubert. He looked terribly beaten. Perhaps he had always known what she had just discovered that day. She thought he looked as though he would like to cry. That was probably her imagination. He was just warm and tired and perhaps a trifle blue. Men didn't really cry.
She watched him for a few seconds more. Presently she arose and crossed the room to the couch. She sat down beside him and put her arm around him.
"Honey," she said. Then again, very sternly, "Honey, listen. It's all right. We'll pull through. Listen, I went downtown today and got a job. Honestly I did. I start tomorrow. Handkerchiefs, of course. Now don't you worry. Wasn't that smart of me? Oh, go
