The tall man said at last, “Pack your suitcase and come away. I’m not asking you to.... You know. You understand me, don’t you, Sally? I love you. But that’s not it, not entirely. I wouldn’t try to break up your home, not if you had a home. I see you wearing yourself out here. This is breaking you, this business. You’ve said so yourself. Now it’s time to cut it out, anyway, for awhile. I saw that look in your eyes when I came in. Leave him a note. I’ll take you anywhere you say. You can go to my mother’s, or you can go to a hotel. But you’ve got to have a rest for awhile anyway. I saw that look in your eyes when I came in. Now you’ve got to give this business a let-up. Don’t worry about him. Leave him a note and some money. Anyway, I have always managed to look him up every day or so, I’ll see to it that he gets along. You know that Eddie and I understand each other, Sally, I mean, when he’s sober. And I don’t have to tell you, do I Sally, that I am honest about it with both of you, no matter how much I want you? You and Eddie and I, we’ve always been friends, and we always will be, no matter what happens. I’ll see him and I’ll talk to him straight out. It will be for the best all the way round, for him too. He’ll see the thing straight. He’s not so unreasonable, not when he’s sober. I know he will consent. I know it can be settled in the right way. Pack a suitcase and come away with me tonight.” His heavy manner, his blunt speech, his awkwardness, revealed the heaviness of his desire and his anxious earnestness. The woman had slowly drawn away from him. Now she leaned back against the table, one hand braced against the edge, the other hand smoothing down the lapel of her jacket. She held her head sideways and cast at the floor a troubled and pensive look, its pathos heightened by the whiteness of her face and supple neck. She thinned her lips and a frown puckered her forehead. “No,” she said slowly, in a small voice. “No, I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t, Allen. No. No.” The tall man looked at her with an expression of benign indecision and puzzlement. He turned his head toward the sprawled shape on the couch. He bit his lip. A deep flush mounted to his forehead and made the arteries in his temples swell. He stroked his chin, meditating. “Sally,” he said at last. The constraint in his voice made the woman look quickly up. “I’ll tell you, Sally, I haven’t talked to you about this thing the way I feel like talking. Now I’m going to talk the way I feel like talking. Maybe it’s brutal of me to do it, but I can’t help that. I have to say what I think. I’m that way and you know me well enough not to mind too much.” But he paused and studied her face, hesitating, half afraid. Then he said: “You loved me before you met Eddie, didn’t you, Sally?” “Yes.”