His expressionless face showed a cynical amusement, with just a hint of triumph in the lighting of his eye.  He shook his head.  “I talked to her,” he said.  “She’s a good, decent woman, but she ain’t quite straight in her head when it comes to Hanson.  He lied to her right along about the others, even from the first; played fast and loose with her, and finally eloped with one of his burlesque head-liners.  She took it.  What else was there for her to do?  But she spends about all of her time watching her fences to see that there’s no divorce in question.  He’s done everything, tried to buy her off more than once, but it’s no good.  Every place he goes she follows him up sooner or later, and she writes him letters, too, every once in so often, offering to come back to him.  And he can’t get anything on her, for she lives as straight as a string.  Oh, no, Pearl, Mr. Rudolf Hanson’ll never marry again as long as that lady’s living, or I miss my guess.”

It was evidently with difficulty that Pearl had controlled herself, her brow had darkened and her upper lip had curled back from her white teeth in a particularly unpleasant and disfiguring fashion.  Again they walked in one of those silences in which she was wont to entrench herself, and then she looked up at him with a faintly scornful smile.  “Well, you’ve sure done your duty, Bob, and I guess you’ve got just about as much thanks as folks usually do for that.”

He drew his hand across his brow and looked before him a little drearily.  “I didn’t expect anything else,” he said simply.  “I knew what I’d get.  But whether you like it or not,” and here he caught her shoulder, his eyes holding hers, “as I told you before, I always got to do what seems the best for you, no matter what’s the cost.”

Her face did not soften.  She merely accepted this as she did all else that he had to give her, himself included.

They had reached the end of a long alley, and now they turned and retraced their steps, but they had traversed almost half of the distance they had come before Pearl spoke again.  “Well, now you’ve told me, what else are you and Pop planning to do?”

He weighed his answer for a few moments.  “I guess nothing,” he said at last.  “I guess we’ll leave it to you to send him about his business.”

She stopped in the path and looked at him; her blue cotton gown fell in long lines of grace about her slender figure.  “If you and Pop want to know what I’m going to do,” she said, “I’ll tell you.  I’m going to accept Rudolf’s offer and go out on the road, that’s what.  You know by this time that I can take care of myself.”

He pondered this seriously, but without a change in the expression of his face.  “Would you go with him,” he asked, “if Sweeney offers you as much or more money?”

“Sweeney won’t offer me more money.  I know Sweeney and his limits,” significantly, “and you won’t make up the balance of what Sweeney lacks, either, do you hear?  Now you, and Pop, too, can just keep your hands off.  I manage this affair myself.”