"Yes," she whispered. "I guess that's it. I guess I'm afraid."
For a moment he thought of the lateness of the hour.
"I'm velee solee," he said. "I'm solee, but I must be going."
"You can't leave me;" she stuttered behind her shut teeth. "You ain't got the heart to leave me all alone on a night like this."
"You can go to your home;" and he thought of the drunkard who had gone to his home. Surely the night sheltered strange creatures. "Les, you better go on to your home."
He had never thought of one of his little Chinese gods with their crooked faces laughing; but as he heard her he knew that their mirth would sound like that. Sound as though all the gladness had been killed; choked out of it, leaving only the harsh echoes that mocked and mocked.
"Gee, mister--; I ain't got no place to go."
He said it again, not knowing what else to say.
Something in his evident sincerity aroused her to protest.
"Oh, I know you thinks it queer for me to be talking this way," she said. "I know you thinks it funny for me to say I'm afraid. And I ain't, excepting--" she added hastily, "on a night like this. It kinder makes everything alive; everything that's rotten bad. I ain't ashamed of the things I've done. I ain't scared of the dead things. It's the live ones I'm afraid of--; the dirty live things. They kinder come at you in the dark." For an instant her body trembled against his. "Then they goes past you all creepy-like. Creeping on their bellies--; sliding,--like--like--slime."
"You don't know what you are saying," he interrupted.
"I know," she insisted. "I know! Some night like this I'll be doing something awful;--and they'll be there." She pointed a shaking hand towards the shadows. "They'll be there, wriggling to me--quiet--!"
"Imagination," he said, and he smiled. In the dark she could not have seen the smile, nor could she have known that the lightness of his tone covered a deep, malignant dread. "It is all imagination!"
"It ain't!" She spoke sullenly. "I tell you, it's real. It's horrible real!"
"Maybe it is," he conceded, and then, as she made no answer, he asked: "You like to walk with me a little?"
"Yes." Her head drooped as though she were utterly discouraged. "It wouldn't be so bad as sticking it out here--alone."