"A man, Mrs. Kaufman, can bust!"
"Bust?"
He was still violently dark, but swallowing with less labor. "Yes, from holding in. Mrs. Kaufman, should a woman like you—the finest woman in the world, and I can prove it—a woman, Mrs. Kaufman, who in her heart and my heart and—Should such a woman not come to Atlantic City when I got everything fixed like a stage set!"
She threw out an arm that was visibly trembling. "Mr. Vetsburg, for God's sake, 'ain't I just told you how that she—harum-scarum—she—."
"Will you, Mrs. Kaufman, come or won't you? Will you, I ask you, or won't you?"
"I—I can't, Mr.—"
"All right, then, I—I bust out now. To-day can be as good as to-morrow! Not with my say in a t'ousand years, Mrs. Kaufman, you sign that lease! I ain't a young man any more with fine speeches, Mrs. Kaufman, but not in a t'ousand years you sign that lease."
"Mr. Vetsburg, Ruby—I—"
"If anybody's got a lease on you, Mrs. Kaufman, I—I want it! I want it! That's the kind of a lease would suit me. To be leased to you for always, the rest of your life!"
She could not follow him down the vista of fancy, but stood interrogating him with her heartbeats at her throat. "Mr. Vetsburg, if he puts on the doors and hinges and new plumbing in—."