The Best Short Stories of 1915 Part 19

"You--you quit! You mustn't!"

She sprang back, quivering, her face cold-looking and blue; and he regarded her with his mouth quirking.

"Huh! Hoity-toity, ain't you? Hoity-toity and white-faced and late, all at once, ain't you? Say, them airs don't get across with me. Come on!

I'm hungry."

"I didn't mean to yell, Charley--only you scared me. I thought maybe it was one of them fresh guys that hang round here; all of 'em look so dopey and all. I--you know I never was strong for this place, Charley."

"Beginning to nag, are you?"

"No, no, Charley. No, no!"

They drew up at a small table.

"No fancy keeling act to-night, kiddo. I ain't taking out a hospital ward, you know. Gad, I like you, though, when you're white-looking like this! Why'd you dodge me at noon to-day and to-night after closing? New guy? I won't stand for it, you know, you little white-faced Sweetness, you!"

"I hadda go somewheres, Charley. I came near not coming to-night, neither, Charley."

"What'll you eat?"

"I ain't hungry."

"Thirsty, eh?"

"No."

He regarded her over the rim of the smirchy bill of fare.

"What are you, then, you little white-faced, big-eyed devil?"

"Charley, I--I got something to--to tell you. I--"

"Bring me a lamb stew and a beer, light. What'll you have, little white-face?"

"Some milk and--"

"She means with suds on, waiter."

"No--no; milk, I said--milk over toast. Milk toast--I gotta eat it. Why don't you lemme talk, Charley? I gotta tell you."

He was suddenly sober.

"What's hurting you? One milk toast, waiter; tell them in the kitchen the lady's teeth hurt her. What's up, Sweetness?" And he must lean across the table and imprint a fresh kiss on her lips.

"Don't--don't--don't! For Gawd's sake, don't!" She covered her face with her hands; and such a trembling seized her that they fell pitifully away again and showed her features, each distorted, "You mustn't, Charley!

Mustn't do that again, not--not for three months--you--you mustn't."

He leaned across the table; his voice was like sleet--cold, thin, cutting:

"What's the matter--going to quit?"

"No--no--no!"

"Got another guy you like better?"

"Oh! Oh!"

"A queenie can't quit me first and get away with it, kiddo. I may be a soft-fingered sort of fellow, but a queenie can't quit me first and get away with it. Ask 'em about me round here; they know me. If anybody in this little duet is going to do the quitting act first it ain't going to be you. What's the matter? Out with it!"

"Charley, it ain't that--I swear it ain't that!"

"What's hurting you, then?"

"I gotta tell you. We gotta go easy for a little while. We gotta quit doing the rounds for a while till--only for a little while. Three months he said would fix me. A grand old doc he was!

"I been to the clinic, Charley. I hadda go. The cough--the cough was cuttin' me in two. It ain't like me to go keeling like I did. I never said much about it; but, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and the shooting pains was cutting me in two. We gotta go easy for a while, Charley; just--"

"You sick, Sara?" His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation.

"Sick?"

"But it ain't, Charley. On his word he promised it ain't! A grand old doc, with whiskers--he promised me that. I--I am just beginning; but the st.i.tch was in time. It ain't a real case yet, Charley. I swear, on my mother's curl of hair, it ain't."

"Ain't what? Ain't what?"

"It ain't! Air, he said, right living--early hours and all. I gotta get out of the bas.e.m.e.nt. He'll get me a job. A grand old man! Windows open; right living. No--no dancing and all, for a while, Charley. Three months only, Charley; and then--"

"What, I say--"

"It ain't, Charley! I swear it ain't. Just one--the left one--a little sore down at the base--the bottom. Charley, quit looking at me like that! It ain't a real case--it ain't; it ain't!"

"It ain't what?"

"The--the T.B. Just the left one; down at--"

"You--you--" An oath as hot as a live coal dropped from his lips and he drew back, strangling. "You--you got it, and you're letting me down easy. You got it, and it's catching as h.e.l.l! You got it, you white devil, and--and you're tryin' to lie out of it--you--you--"

"Charley! Charley!"

"You got it, and you been letting me eat it off your lips! You devil, you! You devil, you! You devil, you!"

"Charley, I--"

"I could kill you! Lemme wash my mouth! You got it; and if you got it I got it! I got it! I got it! I--I--"

He rushed from the table, strangling, stuttering, staggering; and his face was twisted with fear.

For an hour she sat there, waiting, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes growing larger in her face. The dish of stew took on a thin coating of grease and the beer died in the gla.s.s. The waiter snickered. After a while she paid for the meal out of her newly opened wage envelope and walked out into the air.

Once on the street, she moaned audibly into her handkerchief. There is relief in articulation. Her way lay through dark streets, where figures love to slink in the shadows. One threw a taunt at her and she ran. At the stoop of her rooming house she faltered, half fainting and breathing deep from exhaustion, her head thrown back and her eyes gazing upward.