"My, yes! Sometimes if the man sees you're straight, he marries you after a while.... But Joe didn't. I'm sure I don't know why I stuck to him as long as I did, except, that I'm sort of an affectionate disposition and don't like to change," she ruminated. "And then he began to play in pretty bad luck, too, and that's not the time to leave a man, when he's down and out. I guess I'd have been sticking yet, if he'd acted decent--I ain't going to tell you what he asked me to do once when he got on his uppers," she said, darkly flushing, "but it was something no gentleman would have proposed to a woman who'd stuck to him through thick and thin for years! That's when I left him for Calloway."
"Did--did Mr. Calloway marry you?" asked Joan faintly.
"Sure he did! Just before he died. He got religion, and the priest told him he ought, so as he could leave me his money without any fuss. He was a good old sport, that priest! And so was Calloway. Never turned a hair. 'Wish I'd done it before!' says he--Don't you think that's a pretty good recommendation for a woman, when a man's willing to marry her after living with her for fifteen years?" she asked wistfully.
"I suppose so," murmured Joan--The usual thing was happening to her. Old standards receded. Inevitably, irresistibly, she was beginning to see things through the other's eyes. This was Joan's great weakness--though there were people who considered it her strength.
"Calloway was pretty near to being a gentleman--not a born one, like your papa, dearie, but real genteel in his instincts, and he did a whole lot to make a lady of me. He always insisted on us having the best of everything, company especially. When he knew he had to die, poor boy!"--her lips trembled--"he says to me, says he, 'Here's your chance, old girl! Take the money, and go somewhere and make a fresh start,' he says. 'You'll do! You're good as any of 'em.' His very words, dearie! 'You're good as any of 'em.'"--She wiped her eyes.
"And so you came here?" prompted the girl.
"Yes. I'd always liked the place. It seemed sort of friendly and homelike, and it's small enough so that your money counts for something. It wouldn't be lost, I thought, like in New York or Chicago--But I was kind of lonesome at first--always been used to having a man around--and I didn't know anybody. And then your mama died, and I saw my way clear. You didn't know I knew your mama, did you, dearie?"