She was clasping and unclasping her hands, swaying, her eyes closed.

“I wisht to God we was back in our little flat on a Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street.  We was happy then.  It’s your success has lost you for me.  I ought to known it, but—­I—­I wanted things so for you and the boy.  It’s your success has lost you for me.  Back there, not a supper we didn’t eat together like clockwork, not a night we didn’t take a walk or—­”

“There you go again!  I tell you, Millie, you’re going to nag me with that once too often.  Then ain’t now.  What you homesick for?  Your poor-as-a-church-mouse days?  I been pretty patient these last two years, feeling like a funeral every time I put my foot in the front door—­”

“It ain’t often you put it in.”

“But, mark my word, you’re going to nag me once too often!”

“O God!  Harry, I try to keep in!  I know how wild it makes you—­how busy you are, but—­”

“A man that’s give to a woman heaven on earth like I have you!  A man that started three years ago on nothing but nerve and a few dollars, and now stands on two feet, one of the biggest spectacle-producers in the business!  By Gad! you’re so darn lucky it’s made a loon out of you!  Get out more.  Show yourself a good time.  You got the means and the time.  Ain’t there no way to satisfy you?”

“I can’t do things alone all the time, Harry.  I—­I’m funny that way.  I ain’t a woman like that, a new-fangled one that can do things without her husband.  It’s the nights that kill me—­the nights.  The—­all nights sitting here alone—­waiting.”

“If you ’ain’t learned the demands of my business by now, I’m not going over them again.”

“Yes; but not all—­”

“You ought to have some men to deal with.  I’d like to see Mrs. Unger try to dictate to him how to run his business.”

“You’ve left me behind, Harry.  I—­try to keep up, but—­I can’t.  I ain’t the woman to naturally paint my hair this way.  It’s my trying to keep up, Harry, with you and—­and—­Edwin.  These clothes—­I ain’t right in ’em, Harry; I know that.  That’s why I can’t stand it.  The suspense.  The waiting up nights.  I tell you I’m going crazy.  Crazy with knowing I’m left behind.”

“I never told you to paint up your hair like a freak.”

“I thought, Harry—­the color—­like hers—­it might make me seem younger—­”

“You thought!  You’re always thinking.”

She stood behind him now over the couch, her hand yearning toward but not touching him.

“O God!  Harry, ain’t there no way I can please you no more—­no way?”

“You can please me by acting like a human being and not getting me home on wild-goose chases like this.”

“But I can’t stand it, Harry!  The quiet.  Nobody to do for.  You always gone.  Edwin.  The way the servants—­laugh.  I ain’t smart enough, like some women.  I got to show it—­that my heart’s breaking.”