"She's asleep." "Funny. This is the third attack this month and each time it lasts longer. Confound that neuralgia." "She's easier now." He pushed back his plate. "Then I'll go in and sit with her while she sleeps." She who was so fastidiously dainty of manner, half rose, spilling her soup. "No," she said, "you mustn't! Not now!" And sat down again hurriedly, wanting not to appear perturbed. A curious thing happened then to Louis. His lower lip came pursing out like a little shelf and a hitherto unsuspected look of pigginess fattened over his rather plump face. "You quit butting into me and my wife's affairs, you, or get the hell out of here," he said, without changing his voice or his manner. She placed her hand to the almost unbearable flutter of her heart. "Louis! You mustn't talk like that to--me!" "Don't make me say something I'll regret. You! Only take this tip, you! There's one of two things you better do. Quit trying to come between me and her or--get out." "I--she's sick." "Naw, she ain't. Not as sick as you make out. You're trying, God knows why, to keep us apart. I've watched you. I know your sneaking kind. Still water runs deep. You've never missed a chance since we're married to keep us apart. Shame!" "I--she--" "Now mark my word, if it wasn't to spare her, I'd have invited you out long ago. Haven't you got any pride?" "I have. I have," she almost moaned and could have crumpled up there and swooned in her humiliation. "You're not a regular girl. You're a she-devil. That's what you are! Trying to come between your mother and me. Ain't you ashamed? What is it you want?" "Louis--I don't--" "First you turn down a fine fellow like Leo Friedlander, so he don't come to the house any more and then you take out on us whatever is eating you, by trying to come between me and the finest woman that ever lived. Shame. Shame." "Louis," she said. "Louis," wringing her hands in a dry wash of agony, "can't you understand? She'd rather have me. It makes her nervous trying to pretend to you that she's not suffering when she is. That's all, Louis. You see, she's not ashamed to suffer before me. Why, Louis--that's all. Why should I want to come between you and her? Isn't she dearer to me than anything in the world and haven't you been the best friend to me a girl could have? That's all--Louis." He was placated and a little sorry and did not insist further upon going into the room. "Funny," he said. "Funny," and adjusting his spectacles, snapped open his newspaper for a lonely evening. The one thing that perturbed Alma almost more than anything else, as the dreaded cravings grew, with each siege her mother becoming more brutish and more given to profanity, was where she obtained the drug. The well-thumbed old doctor's prescription she had purloined even back in the hotel days, and embargo and legislation were daily making more and more furtive and prohibitive the traffic in narcotics.