When she at last spoke, it was in a reckless, willful tone.
"Forgive me! What have you to forgive, except that I was fool enough to ask you into the house? And if you've suffered for that, it seems I shall have to, too, in the long run; and I'm not going to say I don't like the life, for I like it better than any I've lived before."
"Yes, yes, I tell you. I'm not a heroine, ready to drudge away my life in any round of dull work that'll keep body and soul together. I'd rather have the excitement of living what you call a hole-and-corner life than spend my days stitch--stitch--stitching--dust--dust--dusting, as I used to have to do with Miss Aldridge, as I should have to do if I went away from here."
"Well, but there are other things you could do," pleaded Max, with vague thoughts of setting his own sisters to work to find this erratic child of the riverside some more seemly mode of life than her present one.
"Why, you could--you could teach in a school or in a family."
"No, I couldn't. I don't know enough. And I wouldn't like it, either. And I should have to leave Granny, who wants me, and is fond of me--"
"And Dick!" burst out Max, spitefully. "You would have to give up the society of Dick."
It was possible, even in the darkness, to perceive that this remark startled Carrie. She said, in astonishment which she could not hide:
"I know that you wouldn't care for a life that is repugnant to every notion of decency, if it were not for Dick," retorted Max, with rash warmth.
"I'm afraid you got your information from the wrong quarter," said she, quietly. "Not from Dick himself, that's certain."
There was some relief to Max in this confident assertion, but not much. Judging Dick by his own feelings, he was sure that person had not reached the stage of intimacy at which Carrie called him by his Christian name without hankering after further marks of her favor.
"He is fond of you, of course!" said Max, feeling that he had no right to say this, but justifying into himself on the ground of his wish to help her out of her wretched position.
"Are you--of course I've no right to ask--but are you fond of him?"
"I like him in my way," said she. "Not in his way. There's a great difference."
The girl replied with a significant gesture of disgust, which had in it nothing of coquetry, nothing of affectation.