ng me, Jimmie?"

He jerked up his hand, not meeting her glance. "What's the idea of the
comedy?"

"You don't look glad to see me, Jimmie."

"If you--think you're funny."

She was working out of and then back into the freshly white gloves in a
betraying kind of nervousness that belied the toss of her voice. "Well,
of all things! Mad-cat! Mad, just because you didn't seem to be
expecting me."

"I--There's some things that are just the limit, that's what they are.
Some things that are just the limit, that no fellow would stand from any
girl, and this--this is one of them."

Her 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 the 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, siree--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 himself."

"I got a da