air-tonic and how to
rub your salad-plate with garlic? Gosh-golly! I bust right out laffing
when I even think about it! Come down to earth, Max! You'd be a swell
hit welded for life with a gold band, now, wouldn't you?"

She was suddenly seized with immoderate laughter not untinctured with
hysteria, loud and full of emptiness, as if she were shouting for echoes
in a cave.

"Like hell you would! _You_ tied to a bunch of satin and tending the
kids with the whooping-cough! Whoops la, la!" She fell to rocking
herself backward and forward, her rollicking laughter staining her face
dark red.

"Whoops la, la! Whoops la, la!"

Suddenly Max Zincas rose to his height, regarding her sprawling
uncontrolled pose with writhing lips of distaste, straightened his
waistcoat, cleared his throat twice, and, standing, drank the last of
his wine. But a pallor crept up, riding down the flush.

"Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff! But I'd wait till you hear something
funnier I got to tell you. Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff!"

She looked up with her lips still sagging from merriment, but the dark
red in her face darker.

"Huh?"

His bravado suddenly oozed and the clock ticked roundly into the silence
between them.

"Huh?" she repeated, cocking her head.

"You got to know it, Mae, and the sooner I get it out of me the better.
But, remember, if you wanna drive me out before I'm finished, if you
wanna get rid of me a damn sight quicker than any other way, throw me
some sob stuff and watch. You--Well--I--The sooner I get it out of me
the better, Mae."

"Huh?"

"She's a--a nice little thing, Mae. Her mother's a crony with my old
lady. Lives in a brownstone out on Lenox Avenue. Met her first at--at a
tennis-match she was winning at--at Forest Park Club."

"Huh?"

"Not a high-stepper or a looker like you in your day, Mae, none of--that
chorus pep you used to have. Neat, though. Great little kid for
outdoors. Nice little shape, too. Not in your class, but--but neat. Eyes
like yours, Mae, only not--not in your class. A--a little cast in one of
them, but all to the good, Mae. Nice clean little--girl, fifteen thou
with her, and her old man half owner in the Weeko Woolen Mills. I--I
need the money, Mae. The customs is digging up dirt again. It ain't
like I 'ain't been on the level with you, girl. You knew it had to come
sooner or later. Now, didn't you, Mae? Now there's the girl. Didn't
you?"

Reassured, he crossed to where she sat silent, an