“I ain’t crooked like that!  It was my own uncle.  They can’t send me up, Renie.  I’ll kill myself first!  I’ll kill myself first!”

“Izzy, ain’t you ashamed?” But it was as though the odor of death found its way to her nostrils, nauseating her.  “Let me think.  Let me think just a minute.  Let me think.”  She rammed the ends of her fists tight against her eyes until Catherine wheels spun and spun against her lids.  “Let me think just a minute.”

“There’s nobody, Renie—­nobody—­nobody—­no way.”

“Four—­thousand!”

“No-body, I tell you, Renie.  But I’ll kill myself before I—­”

Renie stood up.  “Izzy!  I will!”

He was whimpering frankly against her skirt.  After a while she raised her face.  Jeanne d’Arc might have looked like that when she beheld the vision.

“Squash!”

“What?”

“Squash!  It’s like he was sent out of heaven!”

“He—­he ain’t—­”

“He’s coming to-night—­to ask me, Izzy.  You know what I mean?  Don’t you see?  Don’t you see?”

“I—­”

“Don’t you see, Izzy?  He’s going to ask me, and—­and I’m going to do it!”

“Oh, my God!  Renie, you can’t do that for me if—­You can’t do that for me.”

“He’s got it, Izzy.  I can get ten thousand out of him if I got to.”

“But, Renie—­”

“I—­I can rush it through and—­do it before two weeks, Izzy; and we got a way out, Izzy—­we got a way.  We got a way!”

She threw herself in a passion of hysteria face downward on the bed and a tornado of weeping swept over her.  Rooted, he stood as though face to face with an immense dawn, but with eyes that dared not see the light.

“Renie, I—­can’t!  I—­Renie, I can’t let you do that for me if—­if—­I can’t let you marry him for me if you don’t—­”

“’Sh-h-h!”

Mrs. Shongut’s voice outside the door, querulous:  “Renie!”

Silence.

“Re-nie!”

“Yes, mamma.”

“Why you got your door locked?”

Silence.

“Huh?”

“I—­I—­”

“Come right away out in the dining-room.  If you ’ain’t got no more regards for your parents than not to stay home for supper, anyways you got to fix for the table the flowers what I brought home from market.”

“Yes, mamma.”  She darted to her feet, drying the tears on her cheeks with the palm of her hand.  “Coming, mamma.”  And she slipped through the door of her room, scarcely opening it.

In the dining-room, beside the white-spread table, Mrs. Shongut unwound a paper toot of pink carnations; but the flavor of her spirit was bitter and her thin, pressed-looking lips hung at the corners.

“Maybe you can stop pouting long enough to help with things a little, even if you won’t be here.  I tell you it’s a pleasure when papa comes home for supper with company, to have children like mine.”

“Listen, mamma.  I—­”