lips were trembling now. "You--you bet your life there's some things
that are just the limit."

He slid out his watch, pushing back. "Well, I guess this place is too small
for a fellow and a girl that can follow him around town like a--like--"

She sat forward, grasping the table-sides, her chair tilting with her.
"Don't you dare to get up and leave me sitting here! Jimmie Batch, don't
you dare!"

The waiter intervened, card extended.

"We--we're waiting for another party," said Miss Slayback, her hands still
rigidly over the table-sides and her glance like a steady drill into Mr.
Batch's own.

There was a second of this silence while the waiter withdrew, and then Mr.
Batch whipped out his watch again, a gun-metal one with an open face.

"Now look here. I got a date here in ten minutes, and one or the other of
us has got to clear. You--you're one too many, if you got to know it."

"Oh, I do know it, Jimmie! I been one too many for the last four Saturday
nights. I been one too many ever since May Scully came into five hundred
dollars' inheritance and quit the Ladies' Neckwear. I been one too many
ever since May Scully became a lady."

"If I was a girl and didn't have more shame!"

"Shame! Now you're shouting, Jimmie Batch. I haven't got shame, and I don't
care who knows it. A girl don't stop to have shame when she's fighting for
her rights."

He was leaning on his elbow, profile to her. "That movie talk can't scare
me. You can't tell me what to do and what not to do. I've given you a
square deal all right. There's not a word ever passed between us that ties
me to your apron-strings. I don't say I'm not without my obligations to
you, but that's not one of them. No, sirree--no apron-strings."

"I know it isn't, Jimmie. You're the kind of a fellow wouldn't even talk to
himself for fear of committing hisself."

"I got a date here now any minute, Gert, and the sooner you--"

"You're the guy who passed up the Sixty-first for the Safety First
regiment."

"I'll show you my regiment some day."

"I--I know you're not tied to my apron-strings, Jimmie. I--I wouldn't have
you there for anything. Don't you think I know you too well for that?
That's just it. Nobody on God's earth knows you the way I do. I know you
better than you know yourself."

"You better beat it, Gertie. I tell you I'm getting sore."

Her face flashed from him to the door and back again, her anxiety almost
edged with hysteria. "Come on, Jimmie--