he words."

"Mama, mama, and you pretending all these years you didn't mind!"

"I don't, baby. Not one minute while I got a future to look forward to
with you. For myself, you think I ask anything except my little girl's
happiness? Anyways, when happiness comes to you with a man like Meyer
Vetsburg, don't--don't it come to me, too, baby?"

"Please, I--"

"That's what my little girl can do for mama, better as stenography. Set
herself down well. That's why, since we got on the subject, baby, I--I hold
off signing up the new lease, with every day Shulif fussing so. Maybe,
baby, I--well, just maybe--eh, baby?"

For answer a torrent of tears so sudden that they came in an avalanche
burst from Miss Kaufman, and she crumpled forward, face in hands and red
rushing up the back of her neck and over her ears.

"Ruby!"

"No, no, ma! No, no!"

"Baby, the dream what I've dreamed five years for you!"

"No, no, no!"

She fell back, regarding her.

"Why, Ruby. Why, Ruby, girl!"

"It ain't fair. You mustn't!"

"Mustn't?"

"Mustn't! Mustn't!" Her voice had slipped up now and away from her.

"Why, baby, it's natural at first maybe a girl should be so scared. Maybe
I shouldn't have talked so soon except how it's getting every day plainer,
these trips to Atlantic City and--"

"Mama, mama, you're killing me." She fell back against her parent's
shoulder, her face frankly distorted.

A second, staring there into space, Mrs. Kaufman sat with her arm still
entwining the slender but lax form. "Ruby, is--is it something you ain't
telling mama?"

"Oh, mommy, mommy!"

"Is there?"

"I--I don't know."

"Ruby, should you be afraid to talk to mama, who don't want nothing but her
child's happiness?"

"You know, mommy. You know!"

"Know what, baby?"

"I--er--"

"Is there somebody else you got on your mind, baby?"

"You know, mommy."

"Tell mama, baby. It ain't a--a crime if you got maybe somebody else on
your mind."

"I can't say it, mommy. It--it wouldn't be--be nice."

"Nice?"

"He--he--We ain't even sure yet."

"He?"

"Not--yet."

"Who?"

"You know."

"So help me, I don't."

"Mommy, don't make me say it. Maybe if--when his uncle Meyer takes him in
the business, we--"

"Baby, not Leo?"

"Oh, mommy, mommy!" And she buried her hot, revealing face into the fresh
net V.

"Why--why, baby, a--a _boy_ like that!"

"Twenty-three, mama, ain't a boy!"

"But, Ruby, just a clerk in his father's hotel, and