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didn’t much care, to tell the truth. I didn’t want her money. But she seemed quite upset. She went on: “However, the top bookie price, on any horse that wins, is twenty to one. At that I owe you forty dollars win money, twenty-two dollars place, and fourteen dollars show, plus of course the six that you bet. That’s eighty-two in all. Mr. Kearny, I’ll pay you tomorrow. I came away before the last race was run, and I just now got the results when I called in. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the money with me, and you’ll have to wait.”
    â€œRuth, I told you from the first, my weakness isn’t horses. It’s you. If six bucks a night is the ante, okay, that’s how it is, and dirt cheap. But if you’ll act as a girl ought to act, quit holding out on me, what your name is and how I get in touch, I’ll quit giving an imitation of a third-rate gambler, and we’ll both quit worrying whether you pay me or not. We’ll start over, and—”
    â€œWhat do you mean, act as a girl ought to act?”
    â€œI mean go out with me.”
    â€œOn this job how can i?”
    â€œSomebody making you hold it?”
    â€œThey might be, at that.”
    â€œWith a gun to your head, maybe?”
    â€œThey got ’em, don’t worry.”
    â€œThere’s only one thing wrong with that. Some other girl and a gun, that might be her reason. But not you. You don’t say yes to a gun, or to anybody giving you orders, or trying to. If you did, I wouldn’t be here.”
    She sat looking down in her lap, and then, in a very low voice: “I don’t say I was forced. I do say, when you’re young you can be a fool. Then people can do things to you. And you might try to get back, for spite. Once you start that, you’ll be in too deep to pull out.”
    â€œOh, you could pill out, if you tried.”
    â€œHow, for instance?”
    â€œMarrying me is one way.”
    â€œMe, a pay-off girl for a gang of bookies, marry Miles Kearny, a guy with a crown on his ring and a father that owns a big business and a mother—who’s your mother, by the way?”
    â€œMy mother’s dead.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    We had dead air for a while, and she said: “Mr. Kearny, men like you don’t marry girls like me, at least to live wit them and like it. Maybe a wife can have cross eyes or buck teeth; but she can’t have a past.”
    â€œRuth, I told you, my first night here, I’m from California, where we’ve got present and future. There isn’t any past. Too many of their grand-mothers did what you do, they worked for gambling houses. They dealt so much faro and rolled so many dice and spun so many roulette wheels, in Sacramento and Virginia City and San Francisco, they don’t talk about the past. You go tot admit they made a good state though, those old ladies and their children. They made the best there is, and that’ where I’d be taking you, and that’s why we’d be happy.”
    â€œIt’s out.”
    â€œAre you married, Ruth?”
    â€œNo, but it’s out.”
    â€œWhy is it?”
    â€œI’ll pay you tomorrow night.”
    Next night the place was full, because a lot of them had bet a favorite that came in and they were celebrating their luck. When she’d paid them off she motioned and I went over. She picked up eight tens and two ones and handed them to me, and to get away from the argument I took the bills and put them in my wallet. Then I tried to start where we’d left off the night before, but she held out her hand and said: “Mr. Kearny, it’s been wonderful knowing you, especially knowing someone who always takes off his hat. I’ve wanted to tell you that. But don’t come any more. I won’t see you any more, or accept bets, or anything. Goodbye, and good luck.”
    â€œI’m not letting you go.”
    â€œAren’t you