He fashioned her in clay; and it was as if she came from under the teeth of a Ninth Avenue street-car fender--broken, but remolded in alabaster, and with the white light of her stanch spirit shining through--Addie, whose side, up as high as her ribs, was a flaming furnace and whose smile was sunshine on dew. "You wouldn't eat no supper; so I made you some chicken broth, Goldie. You remember when we was studying shorthand at night school how we used to send Jimmie over to White's lunch-room for chickenette broth and a slab of milk chocolate?" "Do I? Gee! You were the greatest kid, Addie!" "Eat, Goldie--gwan." "I ain't hungry--honest!" "Quit standing over her, Eddie; you make her nervous. Let me feed you, Goldie." "Gee! Ain't you swell to me!" Ready tears sprang to her eyes. "Like you ain't my old chum, Goldie! It don't seem so long since we were working in the same office and going to Recreation Pier dances together, does it?" "Addie! Addie!" "Do you remember how you and me and Ed and Charley Snuggs used to walk up and down Ninth Avenue summer evenings eating ice-cream cones?" "Do I? Oh, Addie, do I?" "I'm glad we had them ice-cream days, Goldie. They're melted, but the flavor ain't all gone." Addie's face was large and white and calm-featured, like a Botticelli head. "You two girls sure was cut-ups! Remember the night Addie first introduced us, Goldie? You came over to call for her, and us three went to the wax-works show on Twenty-third Street. Lordy, how we cut up!" "And I started to ask the wax policeman if we was allowed to go past the rail!" They laughed low in their throats, as if they feared to raise an echo in a vale of tears. "It's like old times for me to be staying all night with you again, Addie. It's been so long! He--he used to get mad like anything if I wanted to see any of the old crowd. He knew they didn't know any good of him. He was always for the sporty, all-night bunch." "Poor kid!" "Don't get her to talking about it again, Eddie; it gets her all excited." "He could have turned me against my own mother, I was that crazy over him." "That," said Addie, softly, "was _love_! And only women can love like that; and women who do love like that are cursed--and blessed." "I'm out of it now, Addie. You won't never send me back to him--you won't ever?" "There now, dearie, you're gettin' worked up again. Ain't you right here, safe with us?" "That night at Hinkey's was the worst, Goldie," said Eddie. "It makes my blood boil! Why didn't you quit then; why?" "I ain't told you all, neither, Eddie. One night he came home about two o'clock, and I had been--" "Just quit thinking and talking about him, Goldie. You're right here, safe with me and Eddie; and he's going to get you a job when you're feeling stronger. And then, when you're free--when you're free--"