“By gad!  I didn’t want to come, anyhow.  I knew the sniveling I’d be let in for.  Gimme a healthy woman with some outdoors in her.  Gimme—­”

“I ain’t going to let out any more, Max; I swear to God I ain’t.  Sit down, dear, and finish your supper.  Looka, your coffee’s all cold.  Lemme go out and heat it up for you.  I—­”

“I’m done.  I’m done before I begin.  Now, Mae, if you can behave yourself and hold in long enough, just say what you got me up here for, and for God’s sake let’s have it over!”

He planted himself before her, feet well apart, and she rose, pushing back her chair, paling.

“I—­I ’ain’t got much of anything to say, Max, except I—­I thought maybe you’d tell me what’s eating you, dearie.”

“I—­”

“After all these years we been together, Max, so—­so happy, all of a sudden, dear, these last two months dropping off from every other night to—­to twice a week and then to—­to once, and this last week—­not at all.  I—­I—­heavens above, Max, I ’ain’t got nothing to say except what’s got you.  Tell me, dearie, is it anything I’ve done?  Is it—­”

“You talk like a loon, Mae, honest you do.  You ’ain’t done nothing.  It’s just that the—­the time’s come, that’s all.  You know it had to.  It always has to.  If you don’t know it, a woman like—­like you ought to.  Gad!  I used to think you was the kind would break as clean as a whistle when the time came to break.”

“Break, Max?”

“Yes, break.  And don’t gimme the baby-stare like that, neither.  You know what I mean alrighty.  You wasn’t born yesterday, old girl!”

The blood ran from her face, blanching it.  “You mean, Max—­”

“Aw, you know what I mean alrighty, Mae, only you ain’t sport enough to take things as they come.  You knew all these years it had to come sooner or later.  I ’ain’t never quizzed into your old life, but if you didn’t learn that, you—­well you ought to.  There never was a New Year came in, Mae, that I didn’t tell you that, if you got the chance, for you to go out after better business.  I never stood in your light or made no bones about nothing!”

“My God!  Max, you—­you’re kidding!”

“All these years I been preaching to you, even before I joined Forest Park Club out there.  ’Don’t get soft, Mae.  Keep down.  Use the dumb-bells.  Hustle around and do a little housework even if I do give you a servant.  Walk in the park.  Keep your looks, girl; you may need ‘em,’ I used to tell you.”

“Oh you—­You!—­”

She clapped her hands over her mouth as if to stanch hysteria.

“Another let-out like that, Mae, and, by gad!  I’ll take my hat and—­”

“No, no, Max, I—­I didn’t mean it.  I’m all right.  I—­Only after all these years you wouldn’t do it, Max.  You wouldn’t.  You wouldn’t throw me over and leave me cold, Max.  What can I do after all these years?  I—­I ’ain’t got a show in a chorus no more.  You’re kidding, Max.  You’re a white man, Max, and—­you—­you wouldn’t do it, Max.  You wouldn’t.  You—­”