"Sure is," said the second girl.
"Hasn't been a very pleasant evening for you," sighed the girl in lilac.
Her voice seemed as much a part of the night as the drowsy breeze
stirring the wide brim of her hat.
"He had to have a chance to show off," said Anthony with a scornful
laugh.
"Reckon so," she agreed.
They turned the corner and moved lackadaisically up a side street, as if
following a drifting cable to which they were attached. In this town it
seemed entirely natural to turn corners like that, it seemed natural to
be bound nowhere in particular, to be thinking nothing.... The side
street was dark, a sudden offshoot into a district of wild rose hedges
and little quiet houses set far back from the street.
"Where're you going?" he inquired politely.
"Just goin'." The answer was an apology, a question, an explanation.
"Can I stroll along with you?"
"Reckon so."
It was an advantage that her accent was different. He could not have
determined the social status of a Southerner from her talk--in New York
a girl of a lower class would have been raucous, unendurable--except
through the rosy spectacles of intoxication.
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