"But, madam, how can a fellow like me squeeze anything out of life for you? Look at me! Why, I ain't worth your house room. I'm nothing but a fellow who draws his salary off a woman, and has all his life. Why, you—you earn as much in a week as I do in a month."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Look, you with a home you made for yourself and a business you built up out of your own brains, and what am I? A hall-room guy that can put a bluff across with a lot of idiot women. Look at me, forty and doing a chorus-man's work. You got me wrong, madam. I don't measure nowheres near up to you. If I did, do you think I wouldn't be settled down long ago like a regular—Aw, well, what's the use talking." He plucked at his short mustache, pulling the hairs sharply.
She raised her face and let him gaze at the ravages of her tears. "Why—why don't you come right out and say it, that I 'ain't got the looks and—the pep?"
"Madam, can't you see I'm only—"
"You—you can't run yourself down to me. You, and nobody else, has made the establishment what it is. I never had a head for the little things that count. That's why I spent my best years down in Twenty-third Street. What did I know about the big little things!—the carriage-call stunt and the sachet-bags in the lining and the blue and gold labels, all little things that get big results. I never had a head for the things that hold the rich trade, like the walking models, or the French accent."
"You got the head for the big things, and that's what counts."
"That's why, when you say you can't line up alongside of me, it's no excuse."
"I—I mean it."
"Just because I got a head for designing doesn't make me a nine days' wonder. Why don't you—you come right out and say what you mean, Phonzie?"