“Now, now, sister, don’t we understand each other?  Them’s damages, kiddo.  Wasn’t it me dared you?  Ain’t it my fault you doused your duds?”

“Yes, but—­”

“Aw, come now, Doll, don’t pull any of that stuff on me!  You and me understand each other—­not?”

“Yes, but—­”

“Take and forget it.  You won it.  That ain’t even interest on the filly’s winnings.  Take it.  I never started nothing in my life I couldn’t see the finish to.  Take it and forget it!” He crammed the bill into her reluctant fingers, closed them over it, and sealed her little fist with a grandiose pat.  “Forget it, Doll!”

But her lids fluttered and her confusion rose as if to choke her.  “I—­honest, I—­Aw, what kind of a girl do you think I am?”

“I told you I think you’re the sweetest, livest little queen I know.”

“Aw!”

“Come on, little live wire.  Put on your swell, hothouse-trimmed hat.  I’m going to take you to a place farther up the street where there are two staircases and a fountain twice as big for you to puddle your little footsies in.  Waiter—­here—­check—­get a cab!  Here, little Doll, quit your shivering and shaking and lemme help you on—­lemme help you.”

She was suddenly pale, but tense-lipped like a woman who struggles on the edge of a swoon.  “Jimmie, honest, I—­I’m shaking with chills!  Jimmie—­I—­I can’t go in these duds, neither.  I—­I gotta go home now.  He’ll be wakin’ and I—­I gotta go home now.  I’m all shaking.”  In spite of herself her lips quivered and an ague shot through her body.  “I—­I gotta go home now, Jimmie.  Look at me shivering, all shivering!”

“Home now!” His eyes retreated behind a network of calculating wrinkles and she paled as she sat.  “Home now?  Say, Doll, I thought—­”

“Honest, I wanna go to the other place, but I’m cold, Jimmie, and—­wet through.  I gotta keep well, Jimmie, and I—­I oughtta go home.”

“Pah!” he said, spluttering out the end of a bitten cigar.  “If I’d ‘a’ known you was a puny Doll like that!”

“I ain’t, Jimmie; I—­”

“If I’d ‘a’ known you was that puny!  It’s like I been sayin’, Doll, it ain’t like you and me don’t understand each other.  I—­”

“Sure we do, Jimmie.  Honest, I—­To-morrow night I—­I can fix it so that—­that the sky’s my limit.  I’ll meet you at Hinkley’s at eight, cross my heart on a wishbone, Jimmie.”

“Cross it!”

“There!”

“To-night, Jimmie, I’m chilled—­all in.  Look at me in these duds, Jimmie.  I’m cold.  Oh, Jimmie, get me a cab quick, please; I’m co-old!”

She relaxed frankly into a chill that rumbled through her and jarred her knees together.  A little rivulet of water oozed from her hair, zigzagged down her cheek and seeped into her blouse, but her blue-lipped smile persisted.

“Ain’t I a nut, though!  But wait till you see me dolled up to-morrow night, Jimmie!  Eight at Hinkley’s.  I didn’t have a hunch how cold—­how cold that water was.  Next time they gotta—­heat it.”