“She’s too proud to quarrel with me. She’d go a hundred miles out of her way to avoid a quarrel. Suits me all right. I don’t want to be bothered around the house. It’s the same about other men. Too proud to look at them. It’s a cinch for me.” “Well, pride is a cold bedfellow,” said Jewel. “I’m glad I’m not her.” “God! your breast is so broad and firm!” murmured Joe, pillowing his head there. “You’re my kid,” she murmured, running her fingers through his thick hair. “For me, you have never got any bigger.” “On’y a kid?” demanded Joe, raising his head, and grinning close in her face. “Oh well, a man, too. Crazy about yourself, ain’t yeh?” “When I come here,” he said, dropping back on the pillow, “a weight rolls off me, sort of. I can let myself go. I been with lots of women, but it wasn’t the same. I was always tryin’ to make them crazy about me. With you, you old slob! I don’t think of nothing. What ud be the use? You know me!” Rolling over, he flung his arms around her body. “You’re so damn solid, so damn solid!” he muttered. “Gee! it’s great. I don’t know why. You’re so slow and hard to change. It’s funny, but whatever you say seems to come right out of the middle of you. You’re never any different, only more so. Like a tree, damn you! Rooted in the same spot!” He sat up on the bed, nursing his knees. “Well, here’s me, if you know what I mean. Look at the way I’ve worked and schemed, and gone up like a skyrocket. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun, but it don’t seem quite real. All sparks, like the tail of the rocket. It’s been too easy, maybe. Men are such simps. I never had no setbacks to speak of. All I was concerned with was keepin’ out of jail. The same with women. They fell for me so easy, there was no zip to it. I’ve cut out women. . . . “Here I am at the top, and I don’t find it no different. At heart I’m the same kid that used to swipe apples offen t’ pushcarts out there. Gee! I never found a street I liked as well as Rivington. . . . In them days I thought it would be different to be rich. A kind of dream, like. But everything stays just the same. Not but what I enjoy all the big stuff at that; conferring with prominent men, and making them do what I want; being God to thousands of little men; and living in a God-damn palace and all. But not so much as I did. I’m used to it now. And there’s always that feeling somehow that it ain’t quite real. I’ve got a child, and I swear I can’t feel that he’s mine at all. . . . Funny! . . .