"Sorry! I know. Queer, isn't it? We are sort of in the same boat! Queer world! Who'd have thought we'd ended up this way? Funny! You start up some of the old thoughts in me. I could have done something once, if I'd only had to! But I belong to a cursed second generation. We Americans weren't meant to be loafers!" "Why are you, then?" she said impulsively. "Listen! I was hard on you when I went for you a moment ago! Mr. Lindaberry, we are in the same boat. Let me help you--see what I can do! No, wait! I'm speaking what I feel! I've been cruel myself, very cruel--" "Don't believe it!" "Yes, yes, I have; I've made others suffer!" "Then it was their fault!" he said obstinately. "It would mean, just now, a lot to me to count for something," she rushed on. "I can't tell you all the reasons--I don't know all--but I believe what I feel here to-night is the best in me. There is something in all this; I know there's some reason, back of it all, why we have been sent here. Oh, Mr. Lindaberry, do let me help!" "Save me?" he asked, with an ugly laugh. "Yes, save you!" A long silence, in which she watched him breathlessly, hoping for an answer. "Fight it out!" she insisted. He turned suddenly, wondering if she knew how felicitous had been her appeal. "Why, Dodo, I'm pretty far gone!" he said sadly. "Coward!" "No, by God!" he said fiercely. "Let me see you fight, then!" "What for?" "For your own self-respect! See here, Mr. Lindaberry, fight it out for the love of a good fight, and let me be in it. Let me help!" "You mean it?" he said slowly; then he nodded toward all that surrounded them. "This, you know, gets us--sentimental!" "No; I want it!" He laughed in his characteristic way as he did when he sought more reflection. "The bets at the club are two to one against my lasting the year, Dodo!" "Then take up the bet!" "Why, that's an idea!" he said, with a chuckle. He considered more profoundly, his arm still on her shoulder; but there was in it no acquiring touch, only a clinging--the clinging of a weak hand groping for companionship. "I suppose I'm a lonely cuss at bottom," he said slowly, nor did she follow his thought. "Anything I can do I'll do," she urged. "It'll be my fight too! Come to me, call me night or day, when you need me--when things are getting too much for you! I'll come any time!" "You can't!" "I can!" she cried defiantly. "What do I care what is said, if I know and you know that all is right! Thank God, I'm alone! I have no one to whom it matters what the world says. I'm only a waif, a drifter!" "Drifters both!" he said solemnly. She stopped a moment, struck by the idea, feeling their mutual clinging, and the incomprehensible, unseen winds of the night sweeping about them and carrying them--whither? "Listen!" she added hurriedly. "This is my promise. Fight it out, and I will help you by everything that's in me! No matter whom I'm with or where I'm going, I'll turn over everything, when you need me, and come!"