The figure on all-fours rose to full height, drying each forearm on her apron.
"Lay down, dearie, and just don't you worry. I've seen 'em get spells or get holy and stay away for two months on a stretch, and the checks not coming in regular as clockwork like yours, neither. Two months at a time I've seen 'em stick away. Why, when I worked on the lower West Side they used to stick away two and three months like that and then come loafing in one night just like nothing hadn't happened. You ain't got no kick coming, Miss Mae."
A layer of tears rose immediately to Miss Munroe's eyes, dimming them.
She wiped them away with one of her sleeve frills.
"Max ain't like that and you know it. You've seen for yourself how he 'ain't missed his every other night in three years. You seen for yourself."
"They're all alike, I tell you, Miss Mae. The best way to handle 'em is to leave 'em alone."
"How he's been falling off. Loo, all—"
"'Sh-h-h, now, Miss Mae, don't begin getting excited—all last night while I was rubbing your head that's what you kept mumbling and mumbling even after you fell asleep. That—don't help none."
"All last month so irregular and now only once last week, and—and not at all this week. Good heavens! I just wonder, I—just wonder."
"Now, just whatta you bet he'll be up to supper to-night, Miss Mae? If I was you, dearie, I wouldn't be scared, I'd just go right to the telephone and—"
"He gets so sore, Loo. You remember that time I telephoned him about that case of wine he sent up and it came busted, and his mother—his old woman was in the office. He raises hell if I try to telephone him during business."