hey
will never find out from me that he wasn't. I won't be the one to
humiliate his memory--a man who enjoyed keeping up appearances the way
he did. Oh, Alma, Alma, I'm going to get well now! I promise. So help me
God if I ever give in to--it again."

"Mamma, please! For God's sake, you've said the same thing so often,
only to break your promise."

"I've been weak, Alma; I don't deny it. But nobody who hasn't been
tortured as I have can realize what it means to get relief just by--"

"Mamma, you're not playing fair this minute. That's the frightening
part. It isn't only the neuralgia any more. It's just desire. That's
what's so terrible to me, mamma. The way you have been taking it these
last months. Just from--desire."

Mrs. Samstag buried her face, shuddering, down into her hands.

"O God! My own child against me!"

"No, mamma. Why, sweetheart, nobody knows better than I do how sweet and
good you are when you are away from--it. We'll fight it together and
win! I'm not afraid. It's been worse this last month because you've
been nervous, dear. I understand now. You see, I--didn't dream of you
and--Louis Latz. We'll forget--we'll take a little two-room apartment of
our own, darling, and get your mind on housekeeping, and I'll take up
stenography or social ser--"

"What good am I, anyway? No good. In my own way. In my child's way. A
young man like Leo Friedlander crazy to propose and my child can't let
him come to the point because she is afraid to leave her mother. Oh, I
know--I know more than you think I do. Ruining your life! That's what I
am, and mine, too!"

Tears now ran in hot cascades down Alma's cheeks.

"Why, mamma, as if I cared about anything--just so you--get well."

"I know. I know the way you tremble when he telephones, and color up
when he--"

"Mamma, how can you?"

"I know what I've done. Ruined my baby's life, and now--"

"No!"

"Then help me, Alma. Louis wants me for his happiness. I want him for
mine. Nothing will cure me like having a good man to live up to. The
minute I find myself getting the craving for--it--don't you see, baby,
fear that a good husband like Louis could find out such a thing about me
would hold me back? See, Alma?"

"That's a wrong basis to start married life on--"

"I'm a woman who needs a man to baby her, Alma. That's the cure for me.
Not to let me would be the same as to kill me. I've been a bad, weak
woman, Alma, to be so afraid that maybe Leo Friedlander w