"I—I can't, Mrs. Loeb—it—it just won't come—mother."
"Don't tell me you don't know any better! A girl what can be so nice with poor old blind grandma, like you been, can be nice with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, too, if she wants to be. I didn't want I should ever have to talk to you like this, Sadie, but sometimes a—a person she just busts out."
And then Mrs. Herman Loeb leaped forward in her chair, her small tight fist pounding each word:
"Then let me go! Whatta you holding me here for? Let me go back, Mrs.—mother! Let me go! I don't deny it, you're too good for me round here. I don't fit! Let me go back to the old room and—my old room-mate where—where I belong with my—my crowd. You tell what you just said to Herm! Get him to let me go back with him on his trip to-morrow night. Please, Mrs.—mother—please!"
"You mean to New York with him on his business trip for a visit?"
"Call it that if you want to, only let me go! You—you can tell them later that—that I ain't coming back. I—I've begged him so! I don't belong here. You just said as much yourself. I don't belong here. Let me go, Mrs. Loeb. Let me go! You tell him, Mrs. Loeb, to let me go."
Mrs. Bertha Loeb suddenly sat down, and the color flowed out of her face.
"That I should live to see this day! My Herman's wife wants to leave him! Oh, my son, my son! What did you do to yourself! A di—a separation in the Loeb family! I knew last night when I heard through the door and how worried my poor boy has looked for months, that it didn't mean no good. Since her first month here I've seen it coming. I did my part to—"
"Yes, Mrs. Loeb, and I done my part!"
"Oh—oh—oh, and how that boy of mine has catered to her! Humored her every whim to keep her contented! I always say it's the nix-nux wives get the most attentions and thanks from their husbands. I—"