“Max, ain’t—­ain’t this home no more, ain’t it?”

He leaned forward, an elbow on each knee and striking his left hand solidly into his right palm.  “Now if that’s the line of talk you got me up here for, girl, you can cut it and cut it quick!”

“No, no, Max, it ain’t my line of talk.  Here, sit down, dearie, in your own chair and I’ll go and dish up.”

“Where’s Loo?”

“Her night off, poor girl.  Four nights straight she’s rubbed my head and—­”

“Where’s my—­”

“Right here, dearie, is your box of pills, underneath your napkin.  There, dearie!  See?  Just like always.”

She was full of small movements that were quick as grace notes:  pinning the black lace train up and about her hips; drawing out his chair; darting with the scarcely perceptible limp down the narrow hall, back with dishes that exuded aromatic steam; placing them with deft, sure fingers.  Once she paused in her haste, edged up to where he stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, placed an arm on each of his shoulders and let her hands dangle loose-wristed down his back.

“Tired boy, to-night!  Huh?  Maizie’s poor tired boy!”

“Now, now!”

He removed her hands, but gently, and strolled over to where the table lay spread beside the cold, gilded radiator, a potted geranium in its center, a liberal display of showy imitation pearl-handled cutlery carefully laid out, and at each place a long-stemmed wineglass, gold-edged and the color of amber.

“Come,” he said, “let’s eat and get it over.”

She made no sign, but with the corners of her lips propped bravely upward in her too red smile made a last hurried foray into the kitchen, returning with a covered vegetable-dish held outright from her.

“Guess!” she cried.

“Can’t,” he said, and seated himself.

“Gowan, guess like you used to, dearie.”

He fell immediately to sampling with short, quick stabs of his fork the dish of carmine-red pickled beets beside his plate.

“Aw, gowan, Max, give a guess.  What did you used to pay for with six big kisses every time I candied them for you?  Guess, Max.”

“Sit down,” he said, and with his foot shoved a small stool before her chair.

“Lordy!” she said, drawing up en tete-a-tete, unpinning and spreading her lacy train in glory about her, “but you’re some little sunbeam to have around the house.”

“What these beets need is a little sugar.”

She passed him the bowl; elevated her left foot in its slightly soiled white slipper to the footstool; fastened her napkin to her florid bosom with one of her numerous display of breastpins; poured some opaque wine into his glass, coming back to flood her own to the brim; smiled at him across the red head of the potted geranium, as if when the heart bleeds the heart grows light.

“Here’s to you, Max!”

He raised his glass and drank in through his rather heavy mustache, then flecked it this way and that with his napkin “Ahh-h-h-h, that’s the stuff!”