"Bah! you can't throw that up to me, though. I never wanted it! I
could have bought it off any one of them poor devils that hang around
hospitals, as many inches off any one of 'em as I wanted. I never wanted
them to graft it on me off you. I told the doctor I didn't. I knew you'd
be throwing it up to me some day. If I'd bought it off a stranger I--I
wouldn't have that limp in front of me always to--to rub things in. I
knew you'd throw it up to me. I--Gad! I knew it! I knew it!"
"No, no, Max, I didn't mean it. You--you just got me so crazy I don't
know what I'm saying. Sure, I--I made you take it off me. I wanted 'em
to cut it off me to graft on your burns because it--it was like finding
a new way of saying how--how I love you, Max. Every drop of blood was
like--like I could see for myself how--how I loved you, Max. I--"
"Oh, my God!" he said, folded his arms atop the piano, and let his head
fall into them. "Oh, my God!"
"That's how I love you, Max. That's how you--you're all in the world I
got, Max. That's why I--can't, just can't let you go, dear. Don't throw
me over, Max. Cut the comedy and come down to earth. You 'ain't had a
holy spell for two years now since the old woman sniffed me and wanted
to marry you off to that cloak-and-suit buyer with ten thou in the bank
and a rush of teeth to the front. You remember how we laffed, dearie,
that night we seen her at the show? Don't let your old lady--"
"Cut that, I tell you!"
"You'd be a swell gink hitting the altar trail with a bunch of white
satin, wouldn't you? At your time of life, forty and set in your ways,
you'd have a swell time landing a young frisky one and trying to learn
one of them mother's darlings how to rub in your hair-tonic and how to
rub your salad-plate with garlic? Gosh-golly! I bust right out laffing
when I even think about it! Come down to earth, Max! You'd be a swell
hit welded for life with a gold band, now, wouldn't you?"
She was suddenly seized with immoderate laughter not untinctured with
hysteria, loud and full of emptiness, as if she were shouting for echoes
in a cave.
"Like hell you would! _You_ tied to a bunch of satin and tending the
kids with the whooping-cough! Whoops la, la!" She fell to rocking
herself backward and forward, her rollicking laughter staining her face
dark red.
"Whoops la, la! Whoops la, la!"
Suddenly Max Zincas rose to his height, regarding her sprawling
uncontrolled pose with writhing lips of distaste, straightened his
waistcoat, cleared his throat twice, and, standing, drank the last of
his wine. But a pallor crept up, riding down the flush.
"Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff! But I'd wait till you hear something
funnier I got to tell you. Funny, ain't it? Laff! Laff!"
She looked up with her lips still sagging from merriment, but the dark
red in her face darker.
"Huh?"
His bravado suddenly oozed and the clock ticked roundly into the silence
between them.
"Huh?" she repeated, cocking her head.
"You got to know it, Mae, and the sooner I get it out of me the better.
But, remember, if you wanna drive me out before I'm finished, if you
wanna get rid of me a damn sight quicker than any other way, throw me
some sob stuff and watch. You--Well--I--The sooner I get it out of me
the better, Mae."
"Huh?"
"She's a--a nice little thing, Mae. Her mother's a crony with my old
lady. Lives in a brownstone out on Lenox Avenue. Met her first at--at a
tennis-match she was winning at--at Forest Park Club."
"Huh?"
"Not a high-stepper or a looker like you in your day, Mae, none of--that
chorus pep you used to have. Neat, though. Great little kid for
outdoors. Nice little shape, too. Not in your class, but--but neat. Eyes
like yours, Mae, only not--not in your class. A--a little cast in one of
them, but all to the good, Mae. Nice clean little--girl, fifteen thou
with her, and her old man half owner in the Weeko Woolen Mills. I--I
need the money, Mae. The customs is digging up dirt again. It ain't
like I 'ain't been on the level with you, girl. You knew it had to come
sooner or later. Now, didn't you, Mae? Now there's the girl. Didn't
you?"
Reassured, he crossed to where she sat silent, and placed a large, heavy
hand on her shoulder.
"There's nothing needs to worry you, old girl. Thirty-five hundred in
your jeans and a couple of thou and the flat from me on top. Gad! it's a
cinch for you, old girl. I've seen 'em ready for the dump at your age,
and you--you're on the boom yet. Gad! you're the only one I ever knew
kept her looks and took on weight at the same time. You're all right,
Mae, and--and, gad! if I don't wish sometimes the world was different!
Gad! if--if I don't!"
And, rather reassured, he tilted her chin and pinched her cold cheek and
touched the corner of his eyes with the back of his wrist."
"Gad, if--if I don't!"
It was as if the flood of her emotion had risen to a wave and at his
words frozen on its crest. She opened her lips to speak, but could only
regard him with eyes as hard as ice-fields.
"Now, now, Mae, don't look thataway. You're a sensible woman and know
the world's just built thataway. I always told you it don't cost us men
nothing but loose change to show ourselves a good time. You girls gotta
pay up in different coin. If I hadn't come along some other fellow
would, so what's the use a fellow not showing himself a good time?
You girls know where you get off. Come, be a sport, old girl! With
thirty-five hundred in your jeans and me wanting to do the square
thing--the piano and all, lemme say to you that you 'ain't got a kick
coming. Just lemme say that to you--piano and all, Mae!"
Sobs trembled up, thawing the edge of ice that incased her. A thin blur
of tears rose to her eyes like a premonitory ripple before the coming of
the wind.
"You can't! You can't! You--you can't ditch me like that, I tell you.
You--"
"By God! if you're going to begin to holler I'll get out of here so
quick it'll make your head swim!"
"Oh no, you don't! Aw, no, you don't! You ain't going to quit so easy
for a squint-eyed little hank that--that your old woman found for you.
Max, you ain't! You wouldn't! Tell me you wouldn't, dear. Tell me! Tell
me!"
"Get off your knees there and behave yourself, Mae! Looka your dress
there, all torn. This ain't no barroom. Get up and behave yourself!
Ain't you ashamed! Ain't you ashamed!"
She was trembling so that her knees sent little ripples down the tight
white silk drop-skirt.
"You can't ditch me like this and get away with it. You and me
can't--can't part peaceful. You can't throw me over after all these
years for a little squint-eyed hank and get away with it! By Heaven! you
can't!"
He drew tight fists to his sides, his lower jaw shot forward. "You start
a row here and, by gad! if I don't--"
"I ain't! I ain't! But don't throw me over, Max, after all these years!
Don't, Max! You need me. There ain't a woman on God's earth will do for
you what I will. I--I 'ain't got nobody but you, Max, to do for. I
tell you, Max, you--you need me. Think, dear, all them months when the
customs was after you. Them hot days when you couldn't show your face,
and I used to put you to bed and fan and fan you eight hours straight
till you forgot to be scared and fell asleep like a baby."
"Now, now, Mae, I--"
"Them nights we used to mix a few drinks when we came home from a show
or something and sit right here in this room and swill 'em off, laffing
and laffing till we got a little lit up. That time when we sneaked down
to Sheepshead and you lost your wad at the wheel and I won it back for
you. All them times, Max! That--that Christmas Eve you sneaked away from
your old woman! Remember? I tell you, Max, you can't throw me over after
what we been through together, and get away with it. You can't, not by a
damn sight! You can't!"
In spite of herself her voice would slip up, raucous sobs tore through
her words, tears rained down her frankly distorted face, carrying their
bitter taste of salt to her lips.
"You can't! You can't! I 'ain't got the strength! I 'ain't got a thing
in life that ain't wrapped around you. I can't go back to hit or miss
like--like I could ten years ago. I 'ain't got nothing saved out of it
all but you. Don't try to ditch me, Max! Don't! I--I'll walk on my knees
for you. I--"
"For God's sake, Mae, I--"
"If there's a way to raise two times fifteen thou for you, Max, I--I'll
raise it. I'll find a way, Max. I tell you I will! I'm lucky at the
wheel, Max. You watch and see. You just watch and see. I can work. Max,
I--"
"Get up, Mae, get up. There's a good girl. Get up and--"
"I'll work my fingers down, Max, only don't try to ditch me, don't try
to ditch me! I'll go out to the country where your old woman can't ever
sniff me. I--I'll fix it, Max, so you--so you just can't lose. Don't
ditch me, dear; take your Maizie back. Take me in your arms and call me
Maizie. Take me!"
"Girl, 'ain't you--'ain't you got no shame!"
"Just try me back for a month, Max. For a month, Max, and see if--if I
don't fix things so they come out right. Gimme a month, Max! Gimme, Max!
Gimme! Gimme!"
And with her last remnant of restraint gone, she lay downright at his
feet, abandoned to virulent grief, and in her naked agony a shapeless
mass of frill and flounce, a horrible and not dramatic spectacle of
abandonment; decencies gone down before desire, the heart ruptured and
broken through its walls. In such a moment of soul dishabille and
her own dishabille of bosom bulging above the tight lacing of her
corset-line as she lay prone, her mouth sagging and wet with tears, her
lips blowing outward in bubbles, a picture, in fact, to gloss over, Mae
Munroe dragged herself closer, flinging her arms about the knees of Mr.
Zincas, sobbing through her raw throat.
"Just a month, Max! Don't ditch me! Don't! Don't! Don't!"
He looked away from the sorry spectacle of her bubbling lips and great,
swollen eyelids.
"Leggo! Leggo my knees!"
"Just a month, Max, just--"
"Leggo! Leggo my knees! Leggo, girl! Ain't you ashamed!"
"Just a month, Max, I--"
"Gad! 'ain't you got no shame, girl! Get up! Leggo! I can't stand
this, I tell you. Be a sport and leggo me quiet, Mae. I--I'll send you
everything, a--a check that'll surprise you, old girl! Lemme go quiet!
Nothing can't change things. Quit your blubbering. It makes me sick,
I tell you. Quit your blubbering, old girl, and leggo. Leggo! Leg-go!
Leg-go, I say!"
Suddenly he stooped and with a backward turn of her wrist unloosed
himself and, while the pain still staggered her, side-stepped the huddle
of her body, grasped his hat from the divan and lunged to the door,
tugging for a frantic moment with the lock.
On her knees beside the piano, in quite the attitude he had flung her,
leaning forward on one palm and amid the lacy whirl of her train, Mae
Munroe listened to his retreating steps; heard the slam of a lower door.
You who recede before the sight of raw emotions with every delicacy
shamed, do not turn from the spectacle of Mae Munroe prone there on the
floor, her bosom upheaved and her mouth too loose. When the heart is
torn the heart bleeds, whether under cover of culture and a boiled
shirt-front or without shame and the wound laid bare. And Mae Munroe,
who lay there, simple soul, only knew or cared that her heart lay
quivering like a hurt thing, and for the sobs that bubbled too frankly
to her lips had no concern.
But after a while they ceased of exhaustion, and she rose to her feet,
her train threatening to throw her; walked toward the cold, cloyed
dinner, half-eaten and unappetizing on the table; and fell to scooping
some of the cold gravy up from its dish, letting it dripple from the
spoon back again. The powder had long since washed off her cheeks and
her face was cold as dough. The tears had dried around her mouth.
Presently she pinned up the lacy train about her, opened a cupboard door
and slid into a dark, full-length coat, pinned on a hat with a feather
that dropped over one side as if limp with wet, dabbed at her face with
a pink powder-chamois and, wheezing ever so slightly, went out, tweaking
off two of the three electric lights after her--down two flights of
stairs through a quiet foyer and out into the fluid warmth of late
October. Stars were out, myriads of them.
An hour she walked--down the cross-town street and a bit along the
wide, bright, lighted driveway, its traffic long since died down to an
occasional night-prowling cab, a skimming motor-car; then down a flight
of curving stone steps with her slightly perceptible limp, and into the
ledge of parkway where shadows took her into their velvet silence; down
a second flight, across a railroad track, and to the water's edge, where
a great coal-station ran a jut of pier out into the river. She could
walk its length, feeling it sway to the heavy tug of current.
Out at the very edge the water washed up against the piles with a thick,
inarticulate lisp, as if what it had to say might only be understood
from the under side.