Mrs. Connors laid hold of Mr. Connors’s immaculate coat lapel, drawing him toward her.

“Oh, Blutch—­honey—­if only—­if only—­”

“If only what, Babe?”

“If you—­you—­”

“Why, honey, what’s eatin’ you?  I been down pretty near this low many a time; only, you ’ain’t known nothing about it, me not wanting to worry your pretty head.  You ain’t afraid, Babe, your old hubby can’t always take care of his girl A1, are you?”

“No, no, Blutch; only—­”

“What, Babe?”

“I wish to God you was out of it, Blutch!  I wish to God!”

“Out of what, Babe?”

“The game, Blutch.  You’re too good, honey, and too—­too honest to be in it.  What show you got in the end against your playin’ pals like Joe Kirby and Al Flexnor?  I know that gang, Blutch.  I’ve tried to tell you so often how, when I was a kid livin’ at home, that crowd used to come to my mother’s—­”

“Now, now, girl; business is—­”

“You’re too good, Blutch, and too honest to be in it.  The game’ll break you in the end.  It always does.  Blutch darling, I wish to God you was out of it!”

“Why, Ann ’Lisbeth, I never knew you felt this way about it.”

“I do, Blutch, I do!  For years, it’s been here in me—­here, under my heart—­eatin’ me, Blutch, eatin’ me!” And she placed her hands flat to her breast.

“Why, Babe!”

“I never let on.  You—­I—­You been too good, Blutch, to a girl like—­like I was for me to let out a whimper about anything.  A man that took a girl like—­like me that had knocked around just like—­my mother and even—­even my grandmother before me had knocked around—­took and married me, no questions asked.  A girl like me ’ain’t got the right to complain to no man, much less to one like you.  The heaven you’ve given me for eleven years, Blutch!  The heaven!  Sometimes, darlin’, just sittin’ here in a room like this, with no—­no reason for bein’ here—­it’s just like I—­”

“Babe, Babe, you mustn’t!”

“Sittin’ here, waiting for you to come and not carin’ for nothing or nobody except that my boy’s comin’ home to me—­it’s like I was in a dream, Blutch, and like I was going to wake up and find myself back in my mother’s house, and—­”

“Babe, you been sittin’ at home alone too much.  I always tell you, honey, you ought to make friends.  Chuck De Roy’s wife wants the worst way to get acquainted with you—­a nice, quiet girl.  It ain’t right, Babe, for you not to have no friends at all to go to the matinee with or go buyin’ knickknacks with.  You’re gettin’ morbid, honey.”

She worked herself out of his embrace, withholding him with her palms pressed out against his chest.