sober. "What's hurting you? One milk toast, waiter. Tell
them in the kitchen the lady's teeth hurt her. What's up, Sweetness?"
And he leaned across the table to imprint a fresh kiss on her lips.

"Don't--don't--don't! For Gawd's sake, don't!"

She covered her face with her hands; and such a trembling seized her
that they fell pitifully away again and showed her features, each
distorted. "You mustn't, Charley! Mustn't do that again, not--not for
three months--you--you mustn't."

He leaned across the table; his voice was like sleet--cold, thin,
cutting: "What's the matter--going to quit?"

"No--no--no!"

"Got another guy you like better?"

"Oh! Oh!"

"A queenie can't quit me first and get away with it, kiddo. I may be a
soft-fingered sort of fellow, but a queenie can't quit me first and get
away with it. Ask 'em about me round here; they know me. If anybody in
this little duet is going to do the quitting act first it ain't going to
be you. What's the matter? Out with it!"

"Charley, it ain't that--I swear it ain't that!"

"What's hurting you, then?"

"I gotta tell you. We gotta go easy for a little while. We gotta quit
doing the rounds for a while till--only for a little while. Three months
he said would fix me. A grand old doc he was!

"I been to the clinic, Charley. I hadda go. The cough--the cough was
cutting me in two. It ain't like me to go keeling like I did. I never
said much about it; but, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and
the shooting pains was cutting me in two. We gotta go easy for a while,
Charley; just--"

"You sick, Sara?" His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation.
"Sick?"

"But it ain't, Charley. On his word he promised it ain't! A grand old
doc, with whiskers--he promised me that. I--I am just beginning; but the
stitch was in time. It ain't a real case yet, Charley. I swear on my
mother's curl of hair it ain't."

"Ain't what? Ain't what?"

"It ain't! Air, he said, right living--early hours and all. I gotta get
out of the basement. He'll get me a job. A grand old man! Windows open;
right living. No--no dancing and all, for a while, Charley. Three months
only, Charley; and then--"

"What, I say--"

"It ain't, Charley! I swear it ain't. Just one--the left one--a little
sore down at the base--the bottom. Charley, quit looking at me like
that! It ain't a real case--it ain't; it ain't!"

"It ain't what?"

"The--the T.B. Just the left one; down at--"

"You--you--"