"Don't--don't pay any attention to me, Phonzie. I--I just got a silly
fit on me. I'll be all right in a minute."
"Aw, madam, I--I didn't mean to make you sore by anything I said."
"You go now, Phonzie; the whole evening don't need to be spoiled for you
just because I went and got a silly fit of blues on. You--you go get
some live one like Gert and--and take her out skylarking."
"You're sore about Gert, is that it, madam?"
"No, no. Honest, Phonzie."
"Madam, I--I just don't know what's got you. Is it something I said has
hurt your feelings?"
"No, no."
He advanced with an incertitude that muddled his movements, made to
cross to her side where she lay with her arms outstretched in the fuddle
of dishes, made to touch her black silk sleeve where it emerged from the
blue-checked apron, hesitated, sucking his lips in between his teeth,
swung on his heel, then around once more, and placed his hand lightly on
her shoulder.
"Madam?"
"You--you just go on, Phonzie. I--I guess I'm an old fool, anyways. It's
like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip for me to try and squeeze
anything but work out of my life. I--I guess I'm just nothing but an old
fool."
"But, madam, how can a fellow like me squeeze anything out of life for
you? Look at me! Why, I ain't worth your house room. I'm nothing but
a fellow who draws his salary off a woman, and has all his life. Why,
you--you earn as much in a week as I do in a month."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Look, you with a home you made for yourself and a business you built up
out of your own brains, and what am I? A hall-room guy that can put a
bluff across with a lot of idiot women. Look at me, forty and doing a
chorus-man's work. You got me wrong, madam. I don't measure nowheres
near up to you. If I did, do you think I wouldn't be settled down long
ago like a regular--Aw, well, what's the use talking." He plucked at his
short mustache, pulling the hairs sharply.
She raised her face and let him gaze at the ravages of her tears.
"Why--why don't you come right out and say it, that I 'ain't got the
looks and--the pep?"
"Madam, can't you see I'm only--"
"You--you can't run yourself down to me. You, and nobody else, has made
the establishment what it is. I never had a head for the _little_ things
that count. That's why I spent my best years down in Twenty-third
Street. What did I know about the _big_ little things!--the
carriage-call stunt and the sachet-bags in the lining and the blue and
gold labels, all _little_ things that get _big_ results. I never had a
head for the things that hold the rich trade, like the walking models,
or the French accent."
"You got the head for the big things, and that's what counts."
"That's why, when you say you can't line up alongside of me, it's no
excuse."
"I--I mean it."
"Just because I got a head for designing doesn't make me a nine days'
wonder. Why don't you--you come right out and say what you mean,
Phonzie?"
"Why, I--I don't even know how to talk to a woman like you, madam. La-La
girls have always been my pace."
"I know, Phonzie, and I--I ain't blaming you. A slick-looking fellow
like you can skylark around as he pleases and don't need to have time
for--the overworked, tired-out ones like me."
"Madam, I never dreamed--"
"Dreamed! Phonzie, I--I've got no shame if I tell you, but, God! how
many nights I--I've lain right here on this couch dreaming of--of--"
"Well?"
"Of you and me, Phonzie, hitting it off together."
"Madam!"
Her head burrowed deeper in her arms, her voice muffed in their depth.
"Madam!"
"How many times I've dreamed, Phonzie. You and me, real partners in the
business and--and in everything. Us in a little home together, one of
the five-room flats down on the next floor, with a life-size kitchen and
a life-size dining-room and--and a life-size--Aw, Phonzie, you--you'll
think I'm crazy."
"Madam, why, madam, I just don't know."
"Them's the dreams a silly old thing like me, that never had nothing
but work and--and nothing else in her life, can lay right here on this
couch, night after night, and--Gawd! I--I bet you think I--I'm just
crazy, Phonzie."
For answer he leaned over and took her small figure in his arms, wiping
away with his sheer untried handkerchief the tears; but fresh ones
sashayed down her face and flowed over her words.
"Phonzie, tell me, do you--do you--think--"