"Off and on. I've had troubles of my own." "Well," Pen said low-voiced--it cost her an effort to get it out, "Don Counsell is to me what I suppose Henry Talley was to you." If Blanche was softened she showed it in a sort of back-handed way. "You mean Spike," she said. "That's all he answered to." Pen's instinct began to show her the way. "How did he get that name?" she asked casually. Blanche fell into her little trap. She was standing at the other window idly twisting the cord of the blind between thumb and forefinger. Her back was to Pen. Her voice came muffled and jerky. "Because he was so tall. And slender. But not a gowk neither. A peach of a figure. Thoroughbred. Stripped he weighed 155, and not an ounce to spare. A runner, a swimmer, a boxer; anything that needed speed and wind. And a dancer. The best dancer at Steck's pavilion. Everything he did, he did out o' sight! Class, too. He could pass anywhere as a college boy or a Wall Street broker." She suddenly whirled around. "He was a gunman!" she cried defiantly. "Make what you like of it! He never asked for the good opinion of the likes of you, and neither do I! He was the coolest head of the lot. He went to his mark like a bulldog, and nothing could shake him off. What have you got to do with the likes of us? What do I care what you think? Both him and me had to fight our way since we were kids. We weren't going to take scraps from the tables of the rich. We were out to get the best there was for ourselves. We were outsiders. Well, the insiders were our enemies, and we went after them!" She turned back to the window and began to sob in a hard, dry way that scared Pen. The hurrying, toneless voice went on. "To everybody else he was cool and smooth as hard enamel. Not to me. He was human to me. Lighthearted as a boy when there was no business on hand. You were sure of having a good time with Spike. Make you die laughing with his wild, comical ways. He was a man. He was real. There was a fire in him ... Oh God!" She turned and flung herself face down across the bed, her arms hanging down the other side. "He's gone! He's gone!" she moaned. "And I'm left! ... Oh God, I can't bear it!" Pen went and sat on the bed, and put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. Blanche flung it off roughly. Rolling over, she sat up with her tormented face not a foot away from Pen's. Pen did not shrink. "You talk about loving a man! I know how your kind loves. Cool and dainty! What do you know about loving, brought up good with a home and a family and all? Everything provided for you. I never had nothing! Till I got him. He was the first who ever belonged to me.... I had to fight every inch of my way and be on guard every minute. He had to, too, just the same. But we could let down with each other! It eased us!" She flung herself down in another wild burst of weeping. Pen let it wear itself out. "I am just the same as you underneath," she murmured.