“There is nothing in the world I would like better than to travel.”
She looked him squarely in the eyes, and her smile was accentuated. Then she resumed her work. As for him he leaned still farther back in the comfortable chair and sucked complacently on his big Havana.
“I knew you was a nice little girl as soon as I saw you.”
The rapid, supple fingers never paused for a moment in their work, and were trimming, rubbing and polishing those awful nails into some kind of decent shape. The thick, heavy, hairy hand, with its spatulate extremities, showed physical strength and nothing else. It was made for work, and it had worked, too, in its day. It had been used to the most ordinary and menial kind of labor, as the hands of its ancestors had. It had lifted beams and handled picks and shovels. It had pulled at ropes and tugged at heavy burdens. It had had little to do with the gentler side of life, and even the big diamond ring on the fourth finger could not hide its early career.
But an accident happened--a money-making accident which some might call opportunity--and the hands had been withdrawn from their labors, and the callous spots had a chance to disappear--gradually, but none the less surely. The movement of the slim white fingers caused him to look down, and he was conscious of the fact that his heart was beating a bit faster than usual. The blue smoke from his cigar curled up through his mustache, it crept into his eyes and made them sting. Through the haze he noticed that the girl had a bow of black ribbon fastened to her hair.
“I’ll bet you’d be a good sport if you had the chance.”
“That depends upon what you mean by the chance,” she said.
He couldn’t quite analyze that, and so he blurted out:
“Go down the line with me and I’ll show you.”
“I’d just like to take you out to a little lunch for two. What time do you break away from here? What time do you knock off?”
“Just time enough to go home, and I never go out at night.”
“Tush, tush, now. Be a good fellow, and if I like you I’ll take you on a long trip. You know you said you liked to travel, didn’t you? Well, I’m going to give you a chance, if you behave yourself and stick to me. I’ve been looking for a girl like you for a long while, and you just hit me right, so you’re on the job. I can make good, all right, you needn’t be afraid of that, for I’ve got all kinds of money, and when I meet anybody I like I spend it like a drunken sailor, see?”