at I ain't got--that I haven't got--no
sense of what a girl should do and what she shouldn't do. But you're
wrong. Do you suppose I didn't know all about how crazy it was when I
went with you yesterday? Of course I did. I was as much to blame as
you."

"Oh, no, you weren't. Apart from your being what you call beneath
me--and I don't admit that you are--I'm a great deal older than
you----"

"You're only older in years. In livin' I'm twice your age. Besides I'm
all right here----" she touched her forehead again--"and I could see
first thing that you was a fellow that needed to be took--to be
taken--care of."

"Oh, you did!"

She strengthened her statement with an affirmative nod. "Yes, I did."

"Well, then, I've always paid the people who've taken care of me----"

"Oh, but you didn't ask me to take care of you, and I didn't take no
care. You wanted me to be a disgrace to you, and I thought so little
of myself that I said I'd go and be it. Now I've got to pay for that,
not be paid for it."

Her head was up with what Steptoe considered to be mettle. Though the
picture she presented was stamped on his mind as resembling the proud
mien of the girl in Whistler's Yellow Buskin, he didn't think of that
till later.

"There's one thing I must ask you to remember," he said, in a tone he
tried to make firm, "that I couldn't possibly accept from you anything
in the way of sacrifice."

Her eyes were wide and earnest. "But I never thought of _makin'_
anything in the way of sacrifice."

"It would be sacrifice for you to help me get out of this scrape, and
have nothing at all to the good."

"But I'd have lots to the good." She reflected. "I'd have
rememberin'."

"What have you got to remember?"

With her child's lack of self-consciousness she looked him straight in
the eyes. "You--for one thing."

"Me!" He had hardly the words for his amazement. "For heaven's sake,
what can you have to remember about me that--that could give you any
pleasure?"

"Oh, I didn't say it would give me any pleasure. I said I'd _have_ it.
It'd be mine--something no one couldn't take away from me."

"But if it doesn't do you any good----"

"It does me good if it makes me richer, don't it?"

"Richer to--to remember _me_?"

She nodded, with a little twisted smile, beginning to move toward the
door. Over her shoulder she said: "And it isn't only you.
There's--there's Steptoe."

Chapter XIII

Making her nod suffice for a good-ni