She heard a voice offering ten to six on Joe Fleming. The
utterance was monotonous--hopeless, it seemed to her, and she felt a
quick thrill. It was her Joe against whom everybody was to bet.
And she felt other thrills. Her blood was touched, as by fire, with
romance, adventure--the unknown, the mysterious, the terrible--as she
penetrated this haunt of men where women came not. And there were other
thrills. It was the only time in her life she had dared the rash thing.
For the first time she was overstepping the bounds laid down by that
harshest of tyrants, the Mrs. Grundy of the working class. She felt
fear, and for herself, though the moment before she had been thinking
only of Joe.
Before she knew it, the front of the hall had been reached, and she had
gone up half a dozen steps into a small dressing-room. This was crowded
to suffocation--by men who played the Game, she concluded, in one
capacity or another. And here she lost Joe. But before the real
personal fright could soundly clutch her, one of the young fellows said
gruffly, "Come along with me, you," and as she wedged out at his heels
she noticed that another one of the escort was following her.
They came upon a sort of stage, which accommodated three rows of men; and
she caught her first glimpse of the squared ring. She was on a level
with it, and so near that she could have reached out and touched its
ropes.
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