ever been to anybody.  You don’t love me, then I don’t care any more about what you ever do or what you ever be to anybody.  But I never want you to be being good Melanctha to me, when it ain’t your loving makes you need it.  I certainly don’t ever want to be having any of your kind of kindness to me.  If you don’t love me, I can stand it.  All I never want to have is your being good to me from kindness.  If you don’t love me, then you and I certainly do quit right here Melanctha, all strong feeling, to be always living to each other.  It certainly never is anybody I ever am thinking about when I am thinking with you Melanctha, darling.  That’s the true way I am telling you Melanctha, always.  It’s only your loving me ever gives me anything to bother me Melanctha, so all you got to do, if you don’t really love me, is just certainly to say so to me.  I won’t bother you more then than I can help to keep from it Melanctha.  You certainly need never to be in any worry, never, about me Melanctha.  You just tell me straight out Melanctha, real, the way you feel it.  I certainly can stand it all right, I tell you true Melanctha.  And I never will care to know why or nothing Melanctha.  Loving is just living Melanctha to me, and if you don’t really feel it now Melanctha to me, there ain’t ever nothing between us then Melanctha, is there?  That’s straight and honest just the way I always feel it to you now Melanctha.  Oh Melanctha, darling, do you love me?  Oh Melanctha, please, please, tell me honest, tell me, do you really love me?”

“Oh you so stupid Jeff boy, of course I always love you.  Always and always Jeff and I always just so good to you.  Oh you so stupid Jeff and don’t know when you got it good with me.  Oh dear, Jeff I certainly am so tired Jeff to-night, don’t you go be a bother to me.  Yes I love you Jeff, how often you want me to tell you.  Oh you so stupid Jeff, but yes I love you.  Now I won’t say it no more now tonight Jeff, you hear me.  You just be good Jeff now to me or else I certainly get awful angry with you.  Yes I love you, sure, Jeff, though you don’t any way deserve it from me.  Yes, yes I love you.  Yes Jeff I say it till I certainly am very sleepy.  Yes I love you now Jeff, and you certainly must stop asking me to tell you.  Oh you great silly boy Jeff Campbell, sure I love you, oh you silly stupid, my own boy Jeff Campbell.  Yes I love you and I certainly never won’t say it one more time to-night Jeff, now you hear me.”

Yes Jeff Campbell heard her, and he tried hard to believe her.  He did not really doubt her but somehow it was wrong now, the way Melanctha said it.  Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctha.  Something, he knew, was not right now in her.  Something in her always now was making stronger the torment that was tearing every minute at the joy he once always had had with her.