"Will you give me something on this, please?" she asked,
desperately.
A man who seemed to be sorting a pile of ready-made coats, paused
in his task for a moment, took the ornament into his hand, and
threw it contemptuously upon the counter.
"Not worth anything," he answered.
"But it must be worth something," Beatrice protested. "I only
want a very little."
Something in her voice compelled the man's attention. He looked
at her white face.
"What's the trouble?" he inquired.
"I must get up to Fifth Avenue somehow," she declared. "I can't
walk and I haven't a nickel."
He pushed the brooch back to her and threw a dime upon the
counter.
"Well," he said, "you don't look fit to walk, and that's a fact,
but the brooch isn't worth entering up. There's a dime for you.
Now git, please, I'm busy."
Beatrice clutched the coin and, almost forgetting to thank him,
found her way up the iron stairs on to the platform of the
elevated. Soon she was seated in the train, rattling and shaking
on its way through the slums into the heart of the wonderful
city. There was only one thing left for her to try, a thing
which she had had in her mind for days. Yet she found herself,
even now she was committed to it, thinking of what lay before her
with something like black horror. It was her last resource,
indeed. Strong though she was, she knew by many small signs that
her strength was almost at an end. The days and weeks of
"disappointments, the long fruitless trudges from office to
office, the heart-sickness of constant refusals, poor food, the
long fasts, had all told their tale.
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