They'd get it all out of their systems that way, and there
was nothing left to curdle. But to sit and glower and think and think!
Oh, it's awful! Why, even Hughie, he'll talk and pound the piano like he
was going to break the poor thing to pieces; but this Spanish way of
Pearl and her father! Oh, my!" Mrs. Gallito shook her head and carefully
wiped a tear from her eye, before it could make a disfiguring rivulet
down the paint and powder on her cheek.
"It can't be so much fun, all things considered," conceded Hanson.
"Fun!" Mrs. Gallito merely looked at him. "When I think of what life
used to be! Lots of work, but just as much excitement. Why, I was awful
pretty, Mr. Hanson," a real flush rose on her faded cheek, "and I had
lots of admiration, 'deed I did."
"You don't need to tell me that," said Hanson. "I guess I got eyes."
"And when I married Gallito," she went on, "I was awful happy. I guess
I was soft, but I always wanted to love some one and be loved a whole
lot, and I thought that was what was going to happen, but it didn't. I
often wonder what he married me for. But," her voice was poignant with
wistfulness, "I would have liked to have been loved, I would."
Hanson nodded understandingly and without speaking, this time, an
expression of real sympathy in his eyes. She was weak and silly. She was
dyed and painted and powdered almost to the point of being grotesque,
and yet, in voicing the universal longing, she became real, and human,
and touching.
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