He had been
intending to leave for some time, but had tarried for the consummation
of his amorous enterprise.
After a while she confided the adventure to a girl friend, and later, as
she watched her friend disappear down the sleepy street of dusty
sunshine she knew in a flash of intuition that her story was going out
into the world. Yet after telling it she felt much better, and a little
bitter, and made as near an approach to character as she was capable of
by walking in another direction and meeting another man with the honest
intention of gratifying herself again. As a rule things happened to Dot.
She was not weak, because there was nothing in her to tell her she was
being weak. She was not strong, because she never knew that some of the
things she did were brave. She neither defied nor conformed nor
compromised.
She had no sense of humor, but, to take its place, a happy disposition
that made her laugh at the proper times when she was with men. She had
no definite intentions--sometimes she regretted vaguely that her
reputation precluded what chance she had ever had for security. There
had been no open discovery: her mother was interested only in starting
her off on time each morning for the jewelry store where she earned
fourteen dollars a week.
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