She covered her face with her hands; and such a trembling seized her that they fell pitifully away again and showed her features, each distorted.  “You mustn’t, Charley!  Mustn’t do that again, not—­not for three months—­you—­you mustn’t.”

He leaned across the table; his voice was like sleet—­cold, thin, cutting:  “What’s the matter—­going to quit?”

“No—­no—­no!”

“Got another guy you like better?”

“Oh!  Oh!”

“A queenie can’t quit me first and get away with it, kiddo.  I may be a soft-fingered sort of fellow, but a queenie can’t quit me first and get away with it.  Ask ’em about me round here; they know me.  If anybody in this little duet is going to do the quitting act first it ain’t going to be you.  What’s the matter?  Out with it!”

“Charley, it ain’t that—­I swear it ain’t that!”

“What’s hurting you, then?”

“I gotta tell you.  We gotta go easy for a little while.  We gotta quit doing the rounds for a while till—­only for a little while.  Three months he said would fix me.  A grand old doc he was!

“I been to the clinic, Charley.  I hadda go.  The cough—­the cough was cutting me in two.  It ain’t like me to go keeling like I did.  I never said much about it; but, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and the shooting pains was cutting me in two.  We gotta go easy for a while, Charley; just—­”

“You sick, Sara?” His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation.  “Sick?”

“But it ain’t, Charley.  On his word he promised it ain’t!  A grand old doc, with whiskers—­he promised me that.  I—­I am just beginning; but the stitch was in time.  It ain’t a real case yet, Charley.  I swear on my mother’s curl of hair it ain’t.”

“Ain’t what?  Ain’t what?”

“It ain’t!  Air, he said, right living—­early hours and all.  I gotta get out of the basement.  He’ll get me a job.  A grand old man!  Windows open; right living.  No—­no dancing and all, for a while, Charley.  Three months only, Charley; and then—­”

“What, I say—­”

“It ain’t, Charley!  I swear it ain’t.  Just one—­the left one—­a little sore down at the base—­the bottom.  Charley, quit looking at me like that!  It ain’t a real case—­it ain’t; it ain’t!”

“It ain’t what?”

“The—­the T.B.  Just the left one; down at—­”

“You—­you—­” An oath as hot as a live coal dropped from his lips, and he drew back, strangling.  “You—­you got it, and you’re letting me down easy.  You got it, and it’s catching as hell!  You got it, you white devil, and—­and you’re trying to lie out of it—­you—­you—­”

“Charley!  Charley!”

“You got it, and you been letting me eat it off your lips!  You devil, you!  You devil, you!  You devil, you!”

“Charley, I—­”

“I could kill you!  Lemme wash my mouth!  You got it; and if you got it I got it!  I got it!  I got it!  I—­I—­”