“No, mamma.  Why, sweetheart, nobody knows better than I do how sweet and good you are when you are away from—­it.  We’ll fight it together and win!  I’m not afraid.  It’s been worse this last month because you’ve been nervous, dear.  I understand now.  You see, I—­didn’t dream of you and—­Louis Latz.  We’ll forget—­we’ll take a little two-room apartment of our own, darling, and get your mind on housekeeping, and I’ll take up stenography or social ser—­”

“What good am I, anyway?  No good.  In my own way.  In my child’s way.  A young man like Leo Friedlander crazy to propose and my child can’t let him come to the point because she is afraid to leave her mother.  Oh, I know—­I know more than you think I do.  Ruining your life!  That’s what I am, and mine, too!”

Tears now ran in hot cascades down Alma’s cheeks.

“Why, mamma, as if I cared about anything—­just so you—­get well.”

“I know.  I know the way you tremble when he telephones, and color up when he—­”

“Mamma, how can you?”

“I know what I’ve done.  Ruined my baby’s life, and now—­”

“No!”

“Then help me, Alma.  Louis wants me for his happiness.  I want him for mine.  Nothing will cure me like having a good man to live up to.  The minute I find myself getting the craving for—­it—­don’t you see, baby, fear that a good husband like Louis could find out such a thing about me would hold me back?  See, Alma?”

“That’s a wrong basis to start married life on—­”

“I’m a woman who needs a man to baby her, Alma.  That’s the cure for me.  Not to let me would be the same as to kill me.  I’ve been a bad, weak woman, Alma, to be so afraid that maybe Leo Friedlander would steal you away from me.  We’ll make it a double wedding, baby!”

“Mamma!  Mamma!  I’ll never leave you.”

“All right, then, so you won’t think your new father and me want to get rid of you, the first thing we’ll pick out in our new home, he said it himself to-night, ‘is Alma’s room.’”

“I tell you it’s wrong.  It’s wrong!”

“The rest with Leo can come later, after I’ve proved to you for a little while that I’m cured.  Alma, don’t cry!  It’s my cure.  Just think, a good man!  A beautiful home to take my mind off—­worry.  He said to-night he wants to spend a fortune, if necessary, to cure—­my neuralgia.”

“Oh, mamma!  Mamma! if it were only—­that!”

“Alma, if I promise on my—­my life!  I never felt the craving so little as I do—­now.”

“You’ve said that before—­and before.”

“But never with such a wonderful reason.  It’s the beginning of a new life.  I know it.  I’m cured!”

“Mamma, if I thought you meant it.”

“I do.  Alma, look at me.  This very minute I’ve a real jumping case of neuralgia.  But I wouldn’t have anything for it except the electric pad.  I feel fine.  Strong.  Alma, the bad times with me are over.”