"Not a high-stepper or a looker like you in your day, Mae, none of--that chorus pep you used to have. Neat, though. Great little kid for outdoors. Nice little shape, too. Not in your cla.s.s, but--but neat. Eyes like yours, Mae, only not--not in your cla.s.s. A--a little cast in one of them, but all to the good, Mae. Nice clean little--girl, fifteen thou with her, and her old man half owner in the Weeko Woolen Mills. I--I need the money, Mae. The customs is digging up dirt again. It ain't like I 'ain't been on the level with you, girl. You knew it had to come sooner or later. Now, didn't you, Mae? Now there's the girl. Didn't you?"

Rea.s.sured, he crossed to where she sat silent, and placed a large, heavy hand on her shoulder.

"There's nothing needs to worry you, old girl. Thirty-five hundred in your jeans and a couple of thou and the flat from me on top. Gad! it's a cinch for you, old girl. I've seen 'em ready for the dump at your age, and you--you're on the boom yet. Gad! you're the only one I ever knew kept her looks and took on weight at the same time. You're all right, Mae, and--and, gad! if I don't wish sometimes the world was different!

Gad! if--if I don't!"

And, rather rea.s.sured, he tilted her chin and pinched her cold cheek and touched the corner of his eyes with the back of his wrist."

"Gad, if--if I don't!"

It was as if the flood of her emotion had risen to a wave and at his words frozen on its crest. She opened her lips to speak, but could only regard him with eyes as hard as ice-fields.

"Now, now, Mae, don't look thataway. You're a sensible woman and know the world's just built thataway. I always told you it don't cost us men nothing but loose change to show ourselves a good time. You girls gotta pay up in different coin. If I hadn't come along some other fellow would, so what's the use a fellow not showing himself a good time?

You girls know where you get off. Come, be a sport, old girl! With thirty-five hundred in your jeans and me wanting to do the square thing--the piano and all, lemme say to you that you 'ain't got a kick coming. Just lemme say that to you--piano and all, Mae!"

Sobs trembled up, thawing the edge of ice that incased her. A thin blur of tears rose to her eyes like a premonitory ripple before the coming of the wind.

"You can't! You can't! You--you can't ditch me like that, I tell you.

You--"

"By G.o.d! if you're going to begin to holler I'll get out of here so quick it'll make your head swim!"

"Oh no, you don't! Aw, no, you don't! You ain't going to quit so easy for a squint-eyed little hank that--that your old woman found for you.

Max, you ain't! You wouldn't! Tell me you wouldn't, dear. Tell me! Tell me!"

"Get off your knees there and behave yourself, Mae! Looka your dress there, all torn. This ain't no barroom. Get up and behave yourself!

Ain't you ashamed! Ain't you ashamed!"

She was trembling so that her knees sent little ripples down the tight white silk drop-skirt.

"You can't ditch me like this and get away with it. You and me can't--can't part peaceful. You can't throw me over after all these years for a little squint-eyed hank and get away with it! By Heaven! you can't!"

He drew tight fists to his sides, his lower jaw shot forward. "You start a row here and, by gad! if I don't--"

"I ain't! I ain't! But don't throw me over, Max, after all these years!

Don't, Max! You need me. There ain't a woman on G.o.d's earth will do for you what I will. I--I 'ain't got n.o.body but you, Max, to do for. I tell you, Max, you--you need me. Think, dear, all them months when the customs was after you. Them hot days when you couldn't show your face, and I used to put you to bed and fan and fan you eight hours straight till you forgot to be scared and fell asleep like a baby."

"Now, now, Mae, I--"

"Them nights we used to mix a few drinks when we came home from a show or something and sit right here in this room and swill 'em off, laffing and laffing till we got a little lit up. That time when we sneaked down to Sheepshead and you lost your wad at the wheel and I won it back for you. All them times, Max! That--that Christmas Eve you sneaked away from your old woman! Remember? I tell you, Max, you can't throw me over after what we been through together, and get away with it. You can't, not by a d.a.m.n sight! You can't!"

In spite of herself her voice would slip up, raucous sobs tore through her words, tears rained down her frankly distorted face, carrying their bitter taste of salt to her lips.

"You can't! You can't! I 'ain't got the strength! I 'ain't got a thing in life that ain't wrapped around you. I can't go back to hit or miss like--like I could ten years ago. I 'ain't got nothing saved out of it all but you. Don't try to ditch me, Max! Don't! I--I'll walk on my knees for you. I--"

"For G.o.d's sake, Mae, I--"

"If there's a way to raise two times fifteen thou for you, Max, I--I'll raise it. I'll find a way, Max. I tell you I will! I'm lucky at the wheel, Max. You watch and see. You just watch and see. I can work. Max, I--"

"Get up, Mae, get up. There's a good girl. Get up and--"

"I'll work my fingers down, Max, only don't try to ditch me, don't try to ditch me! I'll go out to the country where your old woman can't ever sniff me. I--I'll fix it, Max, so you--so you just can't lose. Don't ditch me, dear; take your Maizie back. Take me in your arms and call me Maizie. Take me!"

"Girl, 'ain't you--'ain't you got no shame!"

"Just try me back for a month, Max. For a month, Max, and see if--if I don't fix things so they come out right. Gimme a month, Max! Gimme, Max!

Gimme! Gimme!"

And with her last remnant of restraint gone, she lay downright at his feet, abandoned to virulent grief, and in her naked agony a shapeless ma.s.s of frill and flounce, a horrible and not dramatic spectacle of abandonment; decencies gone down before desire, the heart ruptured and broken through its walls. In such a moment of soul dishabille and her own dishabille of bosom bulging above the tight lacing of her corset-line as she lay p.r.o.ne, her mouth sagging and wet with tears, her lips blowing outward in bubbles, a picture, in fact, to gloss over, Mae Munroe dragged herself closer, flinging her arms about the knees of Mr.

Zincas, sobbing through her raw throat.

"Just a month, Max! Don't ditch me! Don't! Don't! Don't!"

He looked away from the sorry spectacle of her bubbling lips and great, swollen eyelids.

"Leggo! Leggo my knees!"

"Just a month, Max, just--"

"Leggo! Leggo my knees! Leggo, girl! Ain't you ashamed!"

"Just a month, Max, I--"

"Gad! 'ain't you got no shame, girl! Get up! Leggo! I can't stand this, I tell you. Be a sport and leggo me quiet, Mae. I--I'll send you everything, a--a check that'll surprise you, old girl! Lemme go quiet!

Nothing can't change things. Quit your blubbering. It makes me sick, I tell you. Quit your blubbering, old girl, and leggo. Leggo! Leg-go!

Leg-go, I say!"

Suddenly he stooped and with a backward turn of her wrist unloosed himself and, while the pain still staggered her, side-stepped the huddle of her body, grasped his hat from the divan and lunged to the door, tugging for a frantic moment with the lock.

On her knees beside the piano, in quite the att.i.tude he had flung her, leaning forward on one palm and amid the lacy whirl of her train, Mae Munroe listened to his retreating steps; heard the slam of a lower door.

You who recede before the sight of raw emotions with every delicacy shamed, do not turn from the spectacle of Mae Munroe p.r.o.ne there on the floor, her bosom upheaved and her mouth too loose. When the heart is torn the heart bleeds, whether under cover of culture and a boiled shirt-front or without shame and the wound laid bare. And Mae Munroe, who lay there, simple soul, only knew or cared that her heart lay quivering like a hurt thing, and for the sobs that bubbled too frankly to her lips had no concern.

But after a while they ceased of exhaustion, and she rose to her feet, her train threatening to throw her; walked toward the cold, cloyed dinner, half-eaten and unappetizing on the table; and fell to scooping some of the cold gravy up from its dish, letting it dripple from the spoon back again. The powder had long since washed off her cheeks and her face was cold as dough. The tears had dried around her mouth.

Presently she pinned up the lacy train about her, opened a cupboard door and slid into a dark, full-length coat, pinned on a hat with a feather that dropped over one side as if limp with wet, dabbed at her face with a pink powder-chamois and, wheezing ever so slightly, went out, tweaking off two of the three electric lights after her--down two flights of stairs through a quiet foyer and out into the fluid warmth of late October. Stars were out, myriads of them.

An hour she walked--down the cross-town street and a bit along the wide, bright, lighted driveway, its traffic long since died down to an occasional night-prowling cab, a skimming motor-car; then down a flight of curving stone steps with her slightly perceptible limp, and into the ledge of parkway where shadows took her into their velvet silence; down a second flight, across a railroad track, and to the water's edge, where a great coal-station ran a jut of pier out into the river. She could walk its length, feeling it sway to the heavy tug of current.

Out at the very edge the water washed up against the piles with a thick, inarticulate lisp, as if what it had to say might only be understood from the under side.

THE NAME AND THE GAME

At Christmas-tide men and women with soiled lives breathe alcoholic sighs and dare to glance back into the dim corridors of their long agos.