"Call it that if you want to, only let me go! You--you can tell them later that--that I ain't coming back. I--I've begged him so! I don't belong here. You just said as much yourself. I don't belong here. Let me go, Mrs. Loeb. Let me go! You tell him, Mrs. Loeb, to let me go." Mrs. Bertha Loeb suddenly sat down, and the color flowed out of her face. "That I should live to see this day! My Herman's wife wants to leave him! Oh, my son, my son! What did you do to yourself! A di--a separation in the Loeb family! I knew last night when I heard through the door and how worried my poor boy has looked for months, that it didn't mean no good. Since her first month here I've seen it coming. I did my part to--" "Yes, Mrs. Loeb, and I done my part!" "Oh--oh--oh, and how that boy of mine has catered to her! Humored her every whim to keep her contented! I always say it's the nix-nux wives get the most attentions and thanks from their husbands. I--" "I done my part. I've tried as much as you to make myself fit in out here. I--I just ain't your kind, Mrs. Loeb. Yours and--Etta's. I--I can't be saving and economical when I see there's plenty to spend. I--I was raised with my brother down in Shefsky's theater, where nobody cares about monogramed guest towels and about getting up before noon if they don't want to. The evenings here kill me! Kill me! I hate pinochle! I gotta have life, Mrs. Loeb. I hate Kaffee Klatsches with a lot of--I--I tell you I got different blood in my veins, Mrs. Loeb, I--" "No, no, Sadie Mosher Loeb, that kind of talk don't go. You got just the same _shabbos_ like us. Saturday is your--" "Yes, yes, I'm in the right church, all right, Mrs. Loeb, but I'm in the wrong pew. Mrs. Loeb, please can't you understand I'm in the wrong pew!" And all her carefully confined curls, springing their pins, she fell forward a shivering mass. In that surcharged moment and brisky exuding a wintry out-of-doors, Mr. Herman Loeb entered and stood for a moment in the open doorway, in the act of removing his greatcoat. "Herman, my son! Oh, my son!" "What's wrong, ma? Sadie!" "It's come, Herman, like I always predicted to Etta it would. Your wife, my poor boy, she wants to leave you. This should happen to a Loeb yet--a separation in the family! My poor boy! My poor boy!" "Why, ma, what--what's Sadie been telling you?" At that Mrs. Herman Loeb raised her streaming face, her eyes all rid of their roguery and stretched in despair. "I didn't want to let out to her, Herman. I wanted to make a quiet get-away, you know I did. But she nagged me! She nagged me!" "Ma, you shouldn't--" "She heard us last night and Heaven knows how many nights before that. She's wise. She knows. She knows it's been a year of prison here for--" "Oh, my poor boy! Prison! A girl like her finds herself married into one of the most genteel families in St. Louis, a girl what never in her life was used to even decent sheets to sleep on!" "Ma!"