She sank into her chair, with a half-listless motion for me to be seated.
"Do you know why he's called Coke Whelan?" she demanded.
"That, too, you've got to know. It's because he's a heroin and cocaine fiend. He's killing himself with the use of drugs. He's making everything impossible. It's left him irresponsible, as dangerous as any lunatic would be at large."
She turned and looked at a tiny jeweled watch.
"He will be here himself by ten o'clock. And if he heard me saving what I am at this moment, he would kill me as calmly as he'd sit at a café table and lie to you."
"Don't you suppose he knew you were Witter Kerfoot, that among other things you owned a house, and a car, that you were worth making a try for? Don't you suppose he found all that out before he laid his ropes for this wire-tapping story? Can't you see the part _I_ was to play, to follow his lead and show you how we could never bring his money back, but that we could face the gang with their own fire. I was to weaken and show you how we could tap the tapper's own wire, choose the race that promised the best odds, and induce you to plunge against the house on what seemed a sure thing?"
I sat there doing my best to Fletcherize what seemed a remarkably big bite of information.
"But why are you telling me all this?" I still parried, pushing back from the flattering consciousness that we had a secret in common, that I had proved worthy an intimacy denied others.
"Because I've just decided it's the easiest way out."
"I've done a lot of thinking since you came into this room. And for a long time I've been doing a lot of thinking. I don't do things Coke Whelan's way. I took pity on him, once. But I'm getting tired of trying to keep him up when he insists on dropping lower, lower and lower every day. Don't imagine, because you've got certain ideas of me and my life, that I haven't common sense, that I can't see what this other sort of thing leads to. I've seen too many of them, and how they all ended. I may have been mixed up with some strange company in my day, but I want you to know that I've kept my hands clean!"
She had risen by this time and was moving restlessly about the room.
"Do you suppose I'd ever be satisfied to be one of those painted Broadway dolls and let my brain dry up like a lemon on a pantry shelf? I couldn't if I wanted to. I couldn't, although I can see how easy it makes everything. I tell you, a woman with a reputation like mine has got to pay, and keep on paying. She's got to pay twice over for the decencies of life. She's got to pay twice over for protection. Unless you're respectable you can't have respectable people about you. You've got to watch every one in your circle, watch them always, like a hawk. You've got to watch every step you take, and every man you meet--and sometimes you get tired of it all."