too--too honest to be in it.
What show you got in the end against your playin' pals like Joe Kirby and
Al Flexnor? I know that gang, Blutch. I've tried to tell you so often how,
when I was a kid livin' at home, that crowd used to come to my mother's--"

"Now, now, girl; business is--"

"You're too good, Blutch, and too honest to be in it. The game'll break you
in the end. It always does. Blutch darling, I wish to God you was out of
it!"

"Why, Ann 'Lisbeth, I never knew you felt this way about it."

"I do, Blutch, I do! For years, it's been here in me--here, under my
heart--eatin' me, Blutch, eatin' me!" And she placed her hands flat to her
breast.

"Why, Babe!"

"I never let on. You--I--You been too good, Blutch, to a girl like--like
I was for me to let out a whimper about anything. A man that took a girl
like--like me that had knocked around just like--my mother and even--even
my grandmother before me had knocked around--took and married me, no
questions asked. A girl like me 'ain't got the right to complain to no man,
much less to one like you. The heaven you've given me for eleven years,
Blutch! The heaven! Sometimes, darlin', just sittin' here in a room like
this, with no--no reason for bein' here--it's just like I--"

"Babe, Babe, you mustn't!"

"Sittin' here, waiting for you to come and not carin' for nothing or nobody
except that my boy's comin' home to me--it's like I was in a dream, Blutch,
and like I was going to wake up and find myself back in my mother's house,
and--"

"Babe, you been sittin' at home alone too much. I always tell you, honey,
you ought to make friends. Chuck De Roy's wife wants the worst way to get
acquainted with you--a nice, quiet girl. It ain't right, Babe, for you
not to have no friends at all to go to the matinee with or go buyin'
knickknacks with. You're gettin' morbid, honey."

She worked herself out of his embrace, withholding him with her palms
pressed out against his chest.

"I 'ain't got nothing in life but you, honey. There ain't nobody else under
the sun makes any difference. That's why I want you to get out of it,
Blutch. It's a dirty game--the gambling game. You ain't fit for it. You're
too good. They've nearly got you now, Blutch. Let's get out, honey,
while the goin's good. Let's take them seventy-five bucks and buy us a
peanut-stand or a line of goods. Let's be regular folks, darlin'! I'm
willin' to begin low down. Don't stake them last seventy-five, Blutch.