She drained her glass, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes.

She was sitting loosely forward now, her hand out on his.

“You’re the only thing on God’s earth that’s kept me from—­sneakin” back there—­honest.  Lew, I’d have gone back long ago and eat dirt to make it up with him—­if not for you.  I—­ain’t built like Kittie Scogin and those girls.  I got to be self-respectin’ with the fellows or nothing.  They think more of you in the end—­that’s my theory.”

“Sure!”

“A girl’s fly or—­she just naturally ain’t that way.  That’s where all my misunderstanding began with Kittie—­when she wanted me to move over in them rooms on Forty-ninth Street with her—­a girl’s that way or she just ain’t that way!”

“Sure!”

“Lew—­will you—­are you—­you ain’t kiddin’ me all these weeks?  Taxicabbin’ me all night in the Park and—­drinkin’ around this way all the time together.  You ‘ain’t been kiddin’ me, Lew?”

He shot up his cigar to an oblique.

“Now you’re shoutin’!” he repeated.  “It took three months to get you down off your high horse, but now we’re talkin’ the same language.”

“Lew!”

“It ain’t every girl I take up with; just let that sink in.  I like ’em frisky, but I like ’em cautious.  That’s where you made a hit with me.  Little of both.  Them that nibble too easy ain’t worth the catch.”

She reached out the other hand, covering his with her both.

“You’re—­talkin’ weddin’-bells, Lew?”

He regarded her, the ash of his cigar falling and scattering down his waistcoat.

“What bells?”

“Weddin’, Lew.”  Her voice was as thin as a reed.

“O Lord!” he said, pushing back slightly from the table.  “Have another fizz, girl, and by that time we’ll be ready for a trip in my underground balloon.  Waiter!”

She drew down his arm, quickly restraining it.  She was not so sure now of controlling the muscles of her mouth.

“Lew!”

“Now—­now—­”

“Please, Lew!  It’s what kept me alive.  Thinkin’ you meant that.  Please, Lew!  You ain’t goin’ to turn out like all the rest in this town?  You—­the first fellow I ever went as far as—­last night with.  I’ll stand by you, Lew, through thick and thin.  You stand by me.  You make it right with me, Lew, and—­”

He cast a quick glance about, grasped at the sides of the table, and leaned toward her, sotto.

“For God’s sake, hush!  Are you crazy?”

“No,” she said, letting the tears roll down over the too frank gyrations of her face—­“no, I ain’t crazy.  I only want you to do the right thing by me, Lew.  I’m—­blue.  I’m crazy afraid of the bigness of this town.  There ain’t a week I don’t expect my notice here.  It’s got me.  If you been stringin’ me along like the rest of ’em, and I can’t see nothing ahead of me but the struggle for a new job—­and the tryin’ to buck up against what a decent girl has got to—­”