Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/312

 shoulders. He continued. "Why shouldn't you want good things to wear, clothes and all that? Don't we all want something just a little better than we've got? Sure. And then, you'd gone through a pretty tough disappointment. You had musical genius, and you couldn't make it lie down and roll over. That 'd make any one kind of desperate. You ran into that skunk the wrong time—that was all. He was handsome, he had money, and he was smooth. Being a genius, you've got one of those consciences that was worse 'n none at all. Always sticking pins in you—huh? No human being ever lived that didn't think bad once in a while. But thinking and doing 's two different things. It's stepping back that brings home the bacon; and you … stepped back. Say, do you know what to-night is?" He smiled. It was the smile of a gargoyle.

"No. I've forgotten to keep track of the days." "Well, it's little old Christmas Eve, and I'm as homesick as … as hell! Can't you see the good old clean snow coming down, and the Salvation Army Santy Claus hopping about to keep his feet warm and watching the nickels and dimes dropping into his kettle? Huh? And the kids with their little red smellers pasted against the toy-shop windows? 'I choose that!' Can't you hear 'em arguing? Aw, little old New York on Christmas Eve!"

"Don't." Her throat filled suddenly, and she was very close to a passionate storm of tears.