“It hasn’t been easy for me. Sometimes when I have got a man to go with me I walk along the street praying that I won’t shudder and draw away when he touches me with his hands. I know that if I do he will go away and I won’t get any money. “And then they talk and lie about themselves. I’ve had them try to work off bad money and worthless jewelry on me. Sometimes they try to make love to me and then steal back the money they have given me. That’s the hard part, the lying and the pretence. All day I write the same lies over and over for the patent-medicine men and then at night I listen to these others lying to me.” She stopped talking and leaning over put her cheek down on her hand and sat looking into the fire. “My mother,” she began again, “didn’t always wear a clean dress. She couldn’t. She was always down on her knees scrubbing around the floor or out in the garden pulling weeds. But she hated dirt. If her dress was dirty her underwear was clean and so was her body. She taught me to be that way and I wanted to be. It came naturally. But I’m losing it all. All evening I have been sitting here with you thinking that my underwear isn’t clean. Most of the time I don’t care. Being clean doesn’t go with what I am doing. I have to keep trying to be flashy outside so that men will stop when they see me on the street. Sometimes when I have done well I don’t go on the streets for three or four weeks. Then I clean up my room and bathe myself. My landlady lets me do my washing in the basement at night. I don’t seem to care about cleanliness the weeks I am on the streets.” The little German orchestra began playing a lullaby, and a fat German waiter came in at the open door and put more wood on the fire. He stopped by the table and talked about the mud in the road outside. From another room came the silvery clink of glasses and the sound of laughing voices. The girl and Sam drifted back into talk of their home towns. Sam felt that he liked her very much and thought that if she had belonged to him he should have found a basis on which to live with her contentedly. She had a quality of honesty that he was always seeking in people. As they drove back to the city she put a hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t mind about you,” she said, looking at him frankly. Sam laughed and patted her thin hand. “It’s been a good evening,” he said, “we’ll go through with it as it stands.” “Thanks for that,” she said, “and there is something else I want to tell you. Perhaps you will think it bad of me. Sometimes when I don’t want to go on the streets I get down on my knees and pray for strength to go on gamely. Does it seem bad? We are a praying people, we New Englanders.”