"Now, now, Mae, I tell you that you got to cut it. It would have been better if you had just let the old cat die, You oughtn't to tried that gag to get me here to-night. You'll get a lot more out of me if you do it dry, girl. A crying woman can drive me out of the house quicker 'n plague, and you ought to know it by now."
She sat down suddenly, feeling queasy.
"Now, now, old girl, buck up! Be a sport!"
"Gimme a drink, Max. I—Just a swallow. I—I'm all right." And she squeezed her eyes tight shut to blink out the tears.
He handed her a tumbler from the table, keeping his head averted, and after a bit she fell to sobbing and choking and trembling.
"It's her! It's your old woman. She's been chloroforming you with a lot of dope talk about hitting the altar rail with a bunch of white satin with a good fat wad sewed in the lining. It's your old—"
"Cut that!"
"It's your old woman. She—she don't know you like I do, Max. She—"
"Now, now, Mae! You knew this had to come sooner or later, I 'ain't never lied, have I? Right here in this room 'ain't you told me a dozen times you'd let me go quietly when the time came? 'Ain't you?"
"I never thought you meant it, Max. You don't mean it now. Don't let your old woman upset you, dear. What she don't know won't hurt her. Stick around her a little more if you think she's got a hunch about me and the flat. But she 'ain't, dearie; there ain't a chance in the world she's got a hunch about me. Don't let her make a mollycoddle out of you, Max. That old woman don't know enough about life and things to—"