Claire stumbled to her feet, stood with her clenched right hand to her trembling lips, cupping it with her nervous left hand. Her shoulders were dejected. Milt pleaded, "Let's hike out. I don't mind decent honest grease, but this place--look in at table! Dirty dishes---- And gin bottles on the floor!"
"Desert her? When she needs me so?" Claire started forward, but Milt caught her sleeve, and admired, "You were right! You've got more nerve than I have!"
"No. I wouldn't dare if---- I'm glad you're here with me!"
Claire calmed the woman; bound up her hair; washed her face--which needed it; and sat on the log doorstep, holding Dlorus's head in her lap, while Dlorus sobbed, "Pinky--dead! Him that was so lively! And he was so sweet a lover, oh, so sweet. He was a swell fellow; my, he could just make you laugh and cry, the way he talked; and he was so educated, and he played the vi'lin--he could do anything--and athaletic--he would have made me rich. Oh, let me alone. I just want to be alone and think of him. I was so bored with Kloh, and no nice dresses or nothin', and--I did love the kid, but he squalled so, just all the time, and Pinky come, and he was so funny---- Oh, let me alone!"
Claire shivered, then, and the strength seemed to go from the steady arms that had supported Dlorus's head. Dusk had sneaked up on them; the clearing was full of swimming grayness, and between the woman's screams, the woods crackled. Each time Dlorus spoke, her screech was like that of an animal in the woods, and round about them crept such sinister echoes that Milt kept wanting to look back over his shoulder.
"Yes," sighed Claire at last, "perhaps we'd better go."
"If you go, I'll kill myself! Take me to Mr. Kloh! Oh, he was---- My husband, Mr. Kloh. Oh, so good. Only he didn't understand a lady has to have her good times, and Pink danced so well----"
Dlorus sprang up, flung into the cabin, stood in the dimness of the doorway, holding a butcher knife and clamoring, "I will! I'll kill myself if you leave me! Take me down to Mr. Kloh, at North Yakima, tonight!"
"Don't you get flip, young man! I mean it! And I'll kill you----"
Most unchivalrously, quite out of the picture of gray grief, Milt snapped, "That'll be about enough of you! Here! Gimme that knife!"