rl, for the rotter I am. I'm a rich man now,
Loo."

"'Sh-h-h!"

"I'll show you, girl. I can make somebody's life worth living. I'm going to
do something for somebody to prove I'm worth the room I occupy, and that
somebody's going to be you, Loo. I'm going to build you a house that'll go
down in the history of this town. I'm going to wind you around with pearls
to match that skin of yours. I'm going to put the kind of clothes on you
that you read of queens wearing. I've seen enough of the kind of meanness
money can breed. I'm going to make those Romans back there look like
pikers. I'm--"

She reached out, placing her hand pat across his mouth, and, in the languid
air of the room, shuddering so that her lips trembled.

"Charley--for God's sake--it--it's a sin to talk that way!"

"O God, I know it, girl! I'm all muddled--muddled."

He let his forehead drop against her arm, and in the long silence that
ensued she sat there, her hand on his hair.

The roar of traffic, seventeen stories below, came up through the open
windows like the sound of high seas, and from where she sat, staring out
between the pink-brocade curtains, it was as if the close July sky dipped
down to meet that sea, and space swam around them.

"O God!" he said, finally. "What does it all mean--this living and dying--"

"Right living, Charley, makes dying take care of itself."

"God! how he must have died, then! Like a dog--alone."

"'Sh-h-h, Charley; don't get to thinking."

Without raising his head, he reached up to stroke her arm.

"Honey, you're shivering."

"No-o."

"Everything's all right, girl. What's the use me trying to sham it's not.
I--I'm bowled over for the minute, that's all. If it had to come, after
all, it--it came right for my girl. With that poor old man out there,
honey, living alone like a dog all these years, it's just like putting him
from one marble mausoleum out there on Kingsmoreland Place into one where
maybe he'll rest easier. He's better off, Loo, and--we--are too. Hand me
the paper, honey; I--want to see--just how my--poor old man--breathed out."

Then Mrs. Cox rose, her face distorted with holding back tears, her small
high heels digging into and breaking the newspaper at his feet.

"Charley--Charley--"

"Why, girl, what?"

"You don't know it, but my sister, Charley--Ida Bell!"

"Why, Loo, I sent off the message to your mama. They know it by now."

"Charley--Charley--"

"Why, honey, you're full of ner