She yielded to the tipsy man's tugging at her arm. Etta stood as if paralyzed, watching the two move slowly westward. But cold soon triumphed over horror. She retraced her steps toward Vine Street. At the corner stood an elderly man with an iron-gray beard. She merely glanced at him in passing, and so was startled when he said in a low voice: "Go back the way you came. I'll join you." She glanced at him again, saw a gleam in his eyes that assured her she had not imagined the request. Trembling and all at once hot, she kept on across the street. But instead of going into the restaurant she walked past it and east through dark Eighth Street. A few yards, and she heard a quiet step behind her. A few yards more, and the lights of Vine Street threw a man's shadow upon the sidewalk beside her. From sheer fright she halted. The man faced her--a man old enough to be her father, a most respectable, clean looking man with a certain churchly though hardly clerical air about him. "Good evening, miss," said he. "Good evening," she faltered. "I'm a stranger--in town to buy goods and have a little fun," stammered he with a grotesque attempt to be easy and familiar. "I thought maybe you could help me." A little fun! Etta's lips opened, but no words came. The cold was digging its needle-knives into flesh, into bone, into nerve. Through the man's thick beard and mustache came the gleam of large teeth, the twisting of thick raw lips. A little fun! "Would it," continued the man, nervously, "would it be very dear?" "I--I don't know," faltered Etta. "I could afford--say--" he looked at her dress--"say--two dollars." "I--I" And again Etta could get no further. "The room'd be a dollar," pleaded the man. "That'd make it three." "I--I--can't," burst out Etta, hysterical. "Oh, please let me alone. I--I'm a good girl, but I do need money. But I--I can't. Oh, for God's sake--I'm so cold--so cold!" The man was much embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said feelingly. "That's right--keep your virtue. Go home to your parents." He was at ease now; his voice was greasy and his words sleek with the unction of an elder. "I thought you were a soiled dove. I'm glad you spoke out--glad for my sake as well as your own. I've got a daughter about your age. Go home, my dear, and stay a good girl. I know it's hard sometimes; but never give up your purity--never!" And he lifted his square-topped hard hat and turned away. Suddenly Etta felt again the fury of the winter night and icy wind. As that wind flapped her thin skirt and tortured her flesh, she cried, "Wait--please. I was just--just fooling." The man had halted, but he was looking at her uncertainly. Etta put her hand on his arm and smiled pertly up at him--smiled as she had seen other street girls smile in the days when she despised them. "I'll go--if you'll give me three." "I--I don't think I care to go now. You sort of put me out of the humor."