a sister or--or a pal to me, but she's got about as much time
for a fellow of my pace, except when she gets blue, as--as the Queen of
Sheba has."

"That's what you think, maybe, but everybody else knows she--she's been
after you for years, trying--"

"Aw, cut the comedy, madam. Honest, you make me sore. She's nothing
to me off the floor but a darn good pal. Say, I can treat her to a
sixty-cent table d'hote twice a week; but don't you think in the back
of my head, when it comes to a showdown, that I couldn't even buy silk
shoelaces for a girl of her kind. I ain't her pace and we both know it.
Bosh!"

"You'd like to be, all right, if--if she didn't have so many rich ones
hanging around."

"Just the same, many's the time she's told me if she could land a
regular fellow and do the regular thing and settle down on seventy-five
a month in a Harlem flat, why she'd drop all this skylarking of hers for
a family of youngsters, so quick it would make your head swim."

"Sure, that's just what I say, she--"

"Many's the time she--she's cried to me--just cried, because the kind of
life she has to live don't lead to anything, and she knows it."

"I ain't blaming you for liking her, Phonzie; a girl with her figure can
make an old dub like me look like--well, I just guess after her I--I
must look like thirty cents to you."

"You! Say, you got more real sense in your little finger than three of
Gert's kind put together."

She colored like a wild rose.

"Sense ain't what counts with the men nowadays; it's looks and--and
speed like Gert's."

"Girls like Gert are all right, I tell you; but say, when it comes to
real brains like yours--nobody home."

"Maybe not, but just the same it's the girls with sense get tired having
the men rave about their smartness and pass on, to go rushing after a
empty head completely smothered under yellow curls. That's how much
_real_ brains counts for with--with you men."

He flung her a gesture, his cigarette trailing a design in smoke.
"Honest, madam, you got me wrong there. A fellow like me 'ain't got the
nerve to--to go after a woman like you. A girl like Dodo or Gert is my
size, but I'd be a swell dub trying to line up alongside of you, now
wouldn't I?"

Tears that were distilled in her heart rose to her eyes, dimming them.
Her hand fluttered in among the plates and cups and saucers toward him.

"Phonzie, I--I--"

"You what?"

"I--I--Aw, nothing."

Her head fell suddenly forward i