n her arms, pushing the elaborate
coiffure awry, and beneath the blue-checked apron her shoulders heaved.

He rose. "Madam! Why, madam, what--"

"Don't--don't pay any attention to me, Phonzie. I--I just got a silly
fit on me. I'll be all right in a minute."

"Aw, madam, I--I didn't mean to make you sore by anything I said."

"You go now, Phonzie; the whole evening don't need to be spoiled for you
just because I went and got a silly fit of blues on. You--you go get
some live one like Gert and--and take her out skylarking."

"You're sore about Gert, is that it, madam?"

"No, no. Honest, Phonzie."

"Madam, I--I just don't know what's got you. Is it something I said has
hurt your feelings?"

"No, no."

He advanced with an incertitude that muddled his movements, made to
cross to her side where she lay with her arms outstretched in the fuddle
of dishes, made to touch her black silk sleeve where it emerged from the
blue-checked apron, hesitated, sucking his lips in between his teeth,
swung on his heel, then around once more, and placed his hand lightly on
her shoulder.

"Madam?"

"You--you just go on, Phonzie. I--I guess I'm an old fool, anyways. It's
like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip for me to try and squeeze
anything but work out of my life. I--I guess I'm just nothing but an old
fool."

"But, madam, how can a fellow like me squeeze anything out of life for
you? Look at me! Why, I ain't worth your house room. I'm nothing but
a fellow who draws his salary off a woman, and has all his life. Why,
you--you earn as much in a week as I do in a month."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Look, you with a home you made for yourself and a business you built up
out of your own brains, and what am I? A hall-room guy that can put a
bluff across with a lot of idiot women. Look at me, forty and doing a
chorus-man's work. You got me wrong, madam. I don't measure nowheres
near up to you. If I did, do you think I wouldn't be settled down long
ago like a regular--Aw, well, what's the use talking." He plucked at his
short mustache, pulling the hairs sharply.

She raised her face and let him gaze at the ravages of her tears.
"Why--why don't you come right out and say it, that I 'ain't got the
looks and--the pep?"

"Madam, can't you see I'm only--"

"You--you can't run yourself down to me. You, and nobody else, has made
the establishment what it is. I never had a head for the _little_ things
that count. That's w