along, as though bound somewhere; when he looked down at her, under the yellow light of a street lamp, he saw her bosom heaving in her intense effort to make him believe her and, unexpectedly, he was caught by a twinge of that pity which had surprised him on the night he waited in her room while she shook at her Dads, who was dizzy, and her mother, who was doped, in endeavor to explain to them that she was arrested.
"Come on now," she said, again pulling at his sleeve. "Will you?"
"All right." And when they walked, she said: "There wasn't what you think between Ket and me; there wasn't. I was just trying to make him a musician, Mr. Clarke—a real musician who'd compose the great music, not jazz. Music we talked—music, Mr. Clarke, not murder, that night in his room. Can't I ever get into your head what Ket was to me?
"Why, before I met him, I was nothing. Can't you guess, from your own report, what life was to me? It'd been dead-beating and dodging sheriffs and being thrown out of flats and hotels, as long as I can remember. Oh, God, it was disgraceful; and I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't figure anything to do but to make my own money and pay what I could. There was nothing ahead for me but more of it until Ket came along."
She stopped and Calvin twinged at her tug on his sleeve.
"When I found that boy I thought I'd have my chance to show something in the world, Mr. Clarke, to make up for the dirty disgrace I'd been through. The boy had big talent; everybody saw it; he was full of it, but turning out just jazz when he might, almost as easy, turn out music. The big music, I mean, Mr. Clarke; the sort of music they play in Orchestra Hall and print programs for. He might be like Mozart! I was telling him that
