His face was close to her and claret red with an expression she did not dare to face. "And what's this next room here, Jerry? Ain't it sweet and quiet-looking! Spare room? Ain't it pretty with them little white curtains? Quit, quit, Jerry! You mustn't--you mustn't." She broke from his embrace, confusion muddling her movements. "Is this the--the spare room?" "It is, now. It used to be the old woman's till I laid down on the mother-in-law game and squealed. Yeh, I used to have a little mother-in-law in our house that was some mother-in-law. Believe me, she makes that old devil of yourn look like a prize angel." "I--This'll be just the room for Dee Dee, Jerry, where she can feel the morning sun and hear the street-cars over there when she gets lonesome. She ought to have the sunniest room, because it's something she can feel without seeing--poor thing. This will be a swell room for poor old blind Dee Dee, won't it, Jerry? Won't it, Jerry dear?" "Cut the comedy, Peachy. There's a neat free ward waiting for her just the other direction from the city than Newton Heights. Cut the comedy, Peachy." "Jerry, I--I gotta have her with me. I--Now that she--she's in the dark. She couldn't stand an institution, Jerry, she--she just couldn't." "That's what they all say, but they get over it. I know a--" "She couldn't, Jerry. She 'ain't had much in her life, but she's always had a roof over her head that wasn't charity, and she always said, Jerry, that she couldn't never stand a--a institution. She can take any other room you say, Jerry. Maybe there's a little one up-stairs in the third story we could fix up comfy for her; but she's in the dark now, Jerry, and, my God! Jerry, she just couldn't stand an institution!" He patted her shoulder and drew her arm through his. "You lemme take care of that. She don't need to know nothing about it. We'll tell her we're sending her for a visit to the country for a while. After the second day she'll be as snug as a bug in a rug. They're good to 'em in those places; good as gold." "No, no, Jerry! No, no! I gotta have her with me! She raised me from a kid and--and she couldn't stand it, Jerry! I gotta have her, I gotta! I want her!" His mouth sagged downward suddenly and on an oblique. "Say, somebody must have given you a few lessons in nagging, yourself. Them's the lines she used to recite to me about her she-devil of a mother, too. Gad! she used to hang on her mother's apron-strings like she was tied." "Jerry, I--" "Come, Peachy, don't get me sore. Come, let's talk about to-morrow. We gotta get the license first and--" "Jerry, I--Promise me I can have her with me first. I--Just a little yes is all I want--Jerry dear--just a little yes." A frown gathered in a triple furrow on his brow.