“Come in, Cotton Eye,” Faye called.

The door opened and the crooked little cotton-eyed piano player stood in the entrance, waiting for a sound to tell him where she was.

“What is it you want?” Faye asked.

He turned to her. “I don’t feel good, Miss Faye. I want to crawl into my bed and not do no playing tonight.”

“You were sick two nights last week, Cotton Eye. Don’t you like your job?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“Well, all right. But I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”

Kate said softly, “Let the gong alone for a couple of weeks, Cotton Eye.”

“Oh, Miss Kate. I didn’t know you was here. I ain’t been smoking.”

“You’ve been smoking,” Kate said.

“Yes, Miss Kate, I sure will let it alone. I don’t feel good.” He closed the door, and they could hear his hand rubbing along the wall to guide him.

Faye said, “He told me he’d stopped.”

“He hasn’t stopped.”

“The poor thing,” said Faye, “he doesn’t have much to live for.”

Kate stood in front of her. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “You believe in everybody. Someday if you don’t watch, or I don’t watch for you, someone will steal the roof.”

“Who’d want to steal from me?” asked Faye.

Kate put her hand on Faye’s plump shoulders. “Not everyone is as nice as you are.”

Faye’s eyes glistened with tears. She picked up a handkerchief from the chair beside her and wiped her eyes and patted delicately at her nostrils. “You’re like my own daughter, Kate,” she said.

“I’m beginning to believe I am. I never knew my mother. She died when I was small.”

Faye drew a deep breath and plunged into the subject.

“Kate, I don’t like you working here.”

“Why not?”

Faye shook her head, trying to find words. “I’m not ashamed. I run a nice house. If I didn’t somebody else might run a bad house. I don’t do anybody any harm. I’m not ashamed.”

“Why should you be?” asked Kate.

“But I don’t like you working. I just don’t like it. You’re sort of my daughter. I don’t like my daughter working.”

“Don’t be a silly, darling,” said Kate. “I have to—here or somewhere else. I told you. I have to have the money.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Of course I do. Where else could I get it?”

“You could be my daughter. You could manage the house. You could take care of things for me and not go upstairs. I’m not always well, you know.”

“I know you’re not, poor darling. But I have to have money.”

“There’s plenty for both of us, Kate. I could give you as much as you make and more, and you’d be worth it.”

Kate shook her head sadly. “I do love you,” she said. “And I wish I could do what you want. But you need your little reserve, and I—well, suppose something should happen to you? No, I must go on working. Do you know, dear, I have five regulars tonight?”