rm. Don't let me keep you,
kiddo."

The sluice-gates of her fear and anger opened suddenly, and tears rained
down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her bare palm.

"It's because you took the life and soul out of me! They don't want me
back because I ain't nothin' but a rag any more. I guess they're ashamed
to take me back cause I'm in--in your class. Ten months of standing for
your funny business and dodging landladies, and waitin' up nights, and
watchin' you and your crooked starvation game would take the life out of
any girl. It would! It would!"

"Don't fuss at me any more, Goldie-eyes. It's gettin' hard for me to
keep down; and I don't want--want to begin gettin' ugly."

Mr. Trimp advanced toward his wife gently--gently.

"Don't come near me! I know what's coming; but you ain't going to get me
this time with your oily ways. You're the kind that, walks on a girl
with spiked heels and tries to kiss the sores away. I'm going to quit!"

Mr. Trimp plucked at the faint hirsute adornment of his upper lip and
folded his black-and-white waistcoat over the back of a chair. He
fumbled it a bit.

"Stay where you're put, you--you bloomin' vest, you!"

"I--I got friends that'll help me, I have--even if I ain't ever laid
eyes on 'em since the day I married you. I got friends--_real_ friends!
Addie'll take me in any minute, day or night. Eddie Bopp could get me a
job in his firm to-morrow if--if I ask him. I got friends! You've kept
me from 'em; but I ain't afraid to look 'em up. I'm not!"

He advanced to where she stood beneath the waving gas-flame, a pet
phrase clung to his lips, and he stumbled over it.

"My--my little--pussy-cat!"

"You're drunk!"

"No, I ain't, baby--only dog-tired. Dog-tired! Don't fuss at me! You
just don't know how much I love you, baby!"

"Who wouldn't fuss, I'd like to know?"

Her voice was like ice crackling with thaw. He took her lax waist in his
embrace and kissed her on the brow.

"Don't, honey--don't! Me and Cutty had a sucker out, I tell you."

"You--you always get your way with me. You treat me like a dog; but you
know you can wind me round--wind me round."

"Baby! Baby!"

He smoothed her hair away from her salt-bitten eyes, laid his cheek pat
against hers, and murmured to her through the scratch in his throat,
like a parrakeet croons to its mate.

"Pussy-cat! Pussy!"

The river of difference between them dried in the warm sun of her
forgiveness, and she sobbed on his s