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“She’s on the serious list,” said the policeman. “About the same deal as you—a couple of ankles broken, a couple of ribs, two big shiners. You still got all your teeth?”

“Yes,” said George.

“Well,” said the policeman, “she lost her upper front ones.”

“Who did it?” said George.

“Her husband,” said the policeman. “Gratz.”

“You’ve got him?” said George.

“In the morgue,” said the policeman. “A detective caught him working her over. Gratz ran. The detective shot him when he wouldn’t stop. So the lady’s a widow now.”

George’s ankles were set and put in casts after lunch that day. He was given a wheelchair and crutches.

It took him a while to get nerve enough to go calling on the widow Gratz.

At last, he rolled himself into her room and up to her bedside.

Gloria was reading a copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal. When George rolled in, she covered the lower part of her face with the magazine. She covered it too late. George had already seen how fat-lipped and snaggletoothed she was.

Both eyes were black and blue. Her hair was immaculately groomed, however. And she wore earrings—big, barbarous hoops.

“I—I’m sorry,” said George.

She didn’t answer. She stared at him.

“You came to see me—tried to cheer me up,” he said. “Maybe I can cheer you up.”

She shook her head.

“Can’t you talk?” said George.

She shook her head. And then tears ran down her cheeks.

“Oh my—my,” said George, full of pity.

“Pleath—go way,” she said. “Don’t look at me—pleath! I’m tho damn ugly. Go way.”

“You don’t look so bad,” said George earnestly. “Really.”

“He thpoiled my lookth!” she said. The tears got worse.

“He thpoiled my lookth, tho no other man would ever want me!”

“Oh now—” said George gently, “as soon as the swelling goes down, you’ll be beautiful again.”

“I’ll have falth teeth,” she said. “I’m not even twenty-one, and I’ll have falth teeth. I’ll look like thomething out of the bottom of a garbath can. I’m going to become a nun.”

“A what?” said George.

“A nun,” she said. “All men are pigth. My huthband wath a pig. My father wath a pig. You’re a pig. All men are pigth. Go way.”

George sighed, and he went away.

George snoozed before supper, dreamed about Gloria again. When he woke up, he found Gloria St. Pierre in a wheelchair next to his bed, watching him.

She was solemn. She had left her big earrings in her room. And she was doing nothing to cover her bunged-up face. She exposed it bravely, almost proudly, for all to see.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” said George.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a minithter?” she said.

“I’m not one,” said George.

“You’re thtudying to be one,” she said.

“How do you know that?” said George.

“It’th in the newthpaper,” she said. She had the paper with her. She read the headline out loud: “DIVINITY THTUDENT, GUN MOLL, HOTHPITALITHED BY THUGTH.”

“Oh boy,” murmured George, thinking of the effect of the headline on his landlord, the dean of the Divinity School, and on his own parents in a white clapboard house in the Wabash Valley, not far away.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were?” said Gloria. “If I’d know what you were, I never would have thaid the thingth I thaid.”

“Why not?” said George.

“You’re the only kind of man who ithn’t a pig,” she said. “I thought you were jutht thome college kid who wath a pig like everybody elth, only you jutht didn’t have the nerve to act like a pig.”

“Um,” said George.

“If you’re a minithter—or thtudying to be one, anyway—” she said, “how come you don’t bawl me out?”

“For what?” said George.

“For all the evil thingth I do,” she said. She didn’t seem to be fooling. She knew she was bad, and she felt strongly that George’s duty was to scare her.

“Well—until I get a pulpit of my own—” said George.

“What do you need a pulpit for?” she said. “Don’t you believe what you believe? Tho why you need a pulpit?” She rolled her wheelchair closer. “Tell me I’ll go to hell, if I don’t change,” she said.

George managed a humble smile. “I’m not sure you will,” he said.

She backed off from George. “You’re jutht like my father,” she said contemptuously. “He