In the brown-and-white foyer she clung to him, and he knew that she was crying.
"Gee, Dot, don't do that. What's the matter? You make me feel like a dirty dog. It's my fault. I oughtn't to have talked you into it. Come on, you gotta go upstairs, Kid. Cut it out and powder your nose."
He hugged her silently. At the moment she needed a worldly lover who would tell her not to notice the herd save to pity them. She needed assurance, enlightenment. Eddie could not speak, for now in the sane, cold light of afterwards he, too, saw Dot as a poor misled creature whose reckless surrender must darken every hour of her future.
"I wish everybody didn't think it was wrong," said Dot, very low.
"I guess other people have wished that." He sighed heavily.
"Don't you suppose," Dot asked, "that somewhere there are nice people who would think it was all right?"
"Maybe in France," Eddie replied, doubtfully. "Even the high-toned people over there are kind of loose, I've heard."
"Gee, Eddie, I'll feel awful down at work. I bet the girls will be able to tell right off that I've gone bad."
"You gone bad? Gosh, Dot, don't say such things."
Dot fumbled for her compact. Tears had left slim, wavering traces in her rouge, and moisture had gathered her lashes into four dark points above each eye. Eddie surveyed her anxiously. Her brother was sure to know that she had been crying. He watched silently as Dot
