is just living Melanctha to me, and if you
don't really feel it now Melanctha to me, there ain't ever nothing
between us then Melanctha, is there? That's straight and honest just
the way I always feel it to you now Melanctha. Oh Melanctha, darling,
do you love me? Oh Melanctha, please, please, tell me honest, tell me,
do you really love me?"

"Oh you so stupid Jeff boy, of course I always love you. Always and
always Jeff and I always just so good to you. Oh you so stupid Jeff
and don't know when you got it good with me. Oh dear, Jeff I certainly
am so tired Jeff to-night, don't you go be a bother to me. Yes I love
you Jeff, how often you want me to tell you. Oh you so stupid Jeff,
but yes I love you. Now I won't say it no more now tonight Jeff, you
hear me. You just be good Jeff now to me or else I certainly get awful
angry with you. Yes I love you, sure, Jeff, though you don't any way
deserve it from me. Yes, yes I love you. Yes Jeff I say it till I
certainly am very sleepy. Yes I love you now Jeff, and you certainly
must stop asking me to tell you. Oh you great silly boy Jeff Campbell,
sure I love you, oh you silly stupid, my own boy Jeff Campbell. Yes
I love you and I certainly never won't say it one more time to-night
Jeff, now you hear me."

Yes Jeff Campbell heard her, and he tried hard to believe her. He did
not really doubt her but somehow it was wrong now, the way Melanctha
said it. Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctha. Something, he
knew, was not right now in her. Something in her always now was making
stronger the torment that was tearing every minute at the joy he once
always had had with her.

Always now Jeff wondered did Melanctha love him. Always now he was
wondering, was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had made all
their beginning. Was Melanctha right when she said, it was he had the
real responsibility for all the trouble they had and still were having
now between them. If she was right, what a brute he always had been in
his acting. If she was right, how good she had been to endure the
pain he had made so bad so often for her. But no, surely she had made
herself to bear it, for her own sake, not for his to make him happy.
Surely he was not so twisted in all his long thinking. Surely he
could remember right what it was had happened every day in their long
loving. Surely he was not so poor a coward as Melanctha always seemed
to be thinking. Surely, surely, and then the torment would ge