"I can't go on all the years, Ruby. I'm tired. Tired, girl."
"Of course you can't, darling. We—I don't want you to. 'Shh-h-h!"
"It's only you and my hopes in you that kept me going all these years. The hope that, with some day a good man to provide for you, I could find a rest, maybe."
"Yes, yes."
"Every time what I think of that long envelope laying there on that desk with its lease waiting to be signed to-morrow, I—I could squeeze my eyes shut so tight and wish I didn't never have to open them again on this—this house and this drudgery. If you marry wrong, baby, I'm caught. Caught in this house like a rat in a trap."
"No, no, mommy. Leo, he—his uncle—"
"Don't make me sign that new lease, Ruby. Shulif hounds me every day now. Any day I expect he says is my last. Don't make me saddle another five years with the house. He's only a boy, baby, and years it will take, and—I'm tired, baby. Tired! Tired!" She lay back with her face suddenly held in rigid lines and her neck ribbed with cords.
At sight of her so prostrate there, Ruby Kaufman grasped the cold face in her ardent young hands, pressing her lips to the streaming eyes.
"Mommy, I didn't mean it. I didn't! I—We're just kids, flirting a little,
Leo and me. I didn't mean it, mommy!"
"You didn't mean it, Ruby, did you? Tell mama you didn't."