“Why--Pete's the original George W. Dogberry. He has described himself. That little analysis is a picture of his own life these past years. Could anything illustrate it more perfectly than the way he stole that play to-night? Self-interest? Self-expression? That's Pete. Hunting the delicate bits?” He checked himself; he had not told Sue about Maria Tonifetti. He didn't propose to tell her. “When has _he_ built a home? When has _he_ reared any young? When has _he_ failed to assert his Nictzschean ego? When has _he_ failed to yield to the Freudian wish? Who, I wonder, has free-loved more widely. Why, not Hy Lowe himself. And poor Hy is a chastened soul now. Betty's got him smothered, going to marry him after the divorce--if he has a job then. Waters Coryell told me.... No”--he removed his pipe and blew a meditative ring of smoke--“no, dear little girl, whatever the pestiferous Pete may think, or think he thinks, you are not the Truffler. Not you! No, the Truffler is Peter Ericson Mann.” They wandered heme at one o'clock--home to the dingy little apartment on Tenth Street that had been her rooms and later his rooms. It was their rooms now. And the old quarters were not dingy, or bare or wanting in outlook, to the two young persons who let themselves in and stood silently, breathlessly there, she pressing close to his side; they were a gulden palace, brushed by wings of light. “Henry,” she whispered, her arms about his neck, her wet face on his breast, her heart beating tumultuously against his--“Henry, I want us to build a home, to--to produce...” With awe and a prayer in his heart, he kissed her. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trufflers, by Samuel Merwin