“Wait.  Please—­”

“Beautiful!” His eyes were aflame.  “You’re my wife.  Nothing can change that.”

“Nothing except—­yourself.  Now, you must listen to me.”  She forced him reluctantly into his chair and seated herself opposite.  He leaned forward and kissed her once more, then seized her hand and held it.  At intervals he crushed his lips into its pink palm.  “We must start honestly,” she began.  “Do you mind if I hurt you?”

“You can’t hurt me so long as you don’t—­leave me.  Your eyes have haunted me every night.  I’ve seen the curve of your neck—­your lips.  No woman was ever so perfect, so maddening.”

“Always that.  You’re not a husband at this moment; you’re only a man.”

He frowned slightly.

“That’s what makes this whole matter so difficult,” she went on.  “Don’t you see?”

He shook his head.

“You don’t love me, you’re drunk with—­something altogether different to love. ...  It’s true,” she insisted.  “You show it.  You don’t even know the real me.”

“Beauty may be only a skin disease,” Bob laughed, “but ugliness goes clear to the bone.”

“I married you for your money, and you married me because—­I seemed physically perfect—­because my face and my body roused fires in you.  I think we are both pretty rotten at heart, don’t you?”

“No.  Anyhow, I don’t care to think about it.  I never won anything by thinking.  Kiss me again.”

She ignored his demand, with her shadowy smile.  “I deliberately traded on my looks; I put myself up for a price, and you paid that price regardless of everything except your desires.  We muddled things dreadfully and got our deserts.  I didn’t love you, I don’t love you now any more than you love me; but I think we’re coming to respect each other, and that is a beginning.  You have longings to be something different and better; so have I. Let’s try together.  I have it in me to succeed, but I’m not sure about you.”

“Thanks for the good cheer.”

“You’re afraid you can’t make a living for us—­I know you can.  I’m merely afraid you won’t.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I don’t believe the liquor will let you.”

“Nonsense.  Any man can cut down.”

“‘Cutting down’ won’t do for us, Bob.”  He thrilled anew at her intimate use of his name.  “The chemistry of your body demands the stuff—­you couldn’t be temperate in anything.  You’ll have to quit.”

“All right.  I’ll quit.  I divorce the demon rum; lovers once, but strangers now.  I’ll quit gambling, too.”

Lorelei laughed.  “That won’t strain your will-power in the least, for half my salary goes up Amsterdam Avenue, and the rest will about run this flat.”

Her listener frowned.  “Forget that salary talk,” he said, shortly.  “D’you think I’d let you—­support me?  D’you think I’m that kind of a nosegay?  When I get so I can’t pay the bills I’ll walk out.  To-morrow you quit work, and we move to the Ritz—­they know me there, and—­this delightful, home-like grotto of yours gives me the colly-wabbles.”