The Vertical City | Page 7

that kind of
timid adolescence about her, and yet when she said, "Mamma, you
stayed down so late," the bang of a little pistol shot was back
somewhere in her voice.
"Why--Mr. Latz--and--I--sat and talked."
An almost imperceptible nerve was dancing against Mrs. Samstag's
right temple. Alma could sense, rather than see, the ridge of pain.
"You're all right, mamma?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Samstag, and sat down on a divan, its naked greenness
relieved by a thrown scarf of black velvet stenciled in gold.
"You shouldn't have remained down so long if your head is hurting,"
said her daughter, and quite casually took up her mother's beaded hand
bag where it had fallen in her lap, but her fingers feeling lightly and
furtively as if for the shape of its contents.
"Stop that," said Mrs. Samstag, jerking it back, a dull anger in her
voice.
"Come to bed, mamma. If you're in for neuralgia, I'll fix the electric
pad."
Suddenly Mrs. Samstag shot out her arm, rather slim-looking in the

invariable long sleeve she affected, drawing Alma back toward her by
the ribbon sash of her pretty chiffon frock.
"Alma, be good to mamma to-night! Sweetheart--be good to her."
The quick suspecting fear that had motivated Miss Samstag's groping
along the beaded hand bag shot out again in her manner.
"Mamma--you haven't--?"
"No, no! Don't nag me. It's something else, Alma. Something mamma
is very happy about."
"Mamma, you've broken your promise again."
"No! No! No! Alma, I've been a good mother to you, haven't I?"
"Yes, mamma, yes, but what--"
"Whatever else I've been hasn't been my fault--you've always blamed
Heyman."
"Mamma, I don't understand."
"I've caused you worry, Alma--terrible worry. I know that. But
everything is changed now. Mamma's going to turn over such a new
leaf that everything is going to be happiness in this family."
"Dearest, if you knew how happy it makes me to hear you say that."
"Alma, look at me."
"Mamma, you--you frighten me."
"You like Louis Latz, don't you, Alma?"
"Why, yes, mamma. Very much."
"We can't all be young and handsome like Leo, can we?"
"You mean--?"
"I mean that finer and better men than Louis Latz aren't lying around
loose. A man who treated his mother like a queen and who worked
himself up from selling newspapers on the street to a millionaire."
"Mamma?"
"Yes, baby. He asked me to-night. Come to me, Alma; stay with me
close. He asked me to-night."
"What?"
"You know. Haven't you seen it coming for weeks? I have."
"Seen what?"
"Don't make mamma come out and say it. For eight years I've been as
grieving a widow to a man as a woman could be. But I'm human, Alma,
and he--asked me to-night."
There was a curious pallor came over Miss Samstag's face, as if

smeared there by a hand.
"Asked you what?"
"Alma, it don't mean I'm not true to your father as I was the day I
buried him in that blizzard back there, but could you ask for a finer,
steadier man than Louis Latz? It looks out of his face."
"Mamma, you--What--are you saying?"
"Alma?"
There lay a silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and
Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face
stiff with the clench of her mouth.
"Mamma--you--No--no! Oh, mamma--oh--!"
A quick spout of hysteria seemed to half strangle Mrs. Samstag so that
she slanted backward, holding her throat.
"I knew it. My own child against me. O God! Why was I born? My
own child against me!"
"Mamma--you can't marry him. You can't marry--anybody."
"Why can't I marry anybody? Must I be afraid to tell my own child
when a good man wants to marry me and give us both a good home?
That's my thanks for making my child my first consideration--before I
accepted him."
"Mamma, you didn't accept him. Darling, you wouldn't do a--thing like
that!"
Miss Samstag's voice thickened up then quite frantically into a little
scream that knotted in her throat, and she was suddenly so small and
stricken that, with a gasp for fear she might crumple up where she
stood, Mrs. Samstag leaned forward, catching her again by the sash.
"Alma!"
It was only for an instant, however. Suddenly Miss Samstag was her
coolly firm little self, the bang of authority back in her voice.
"You can't marry Louis Latz."
"Can't I? Watch me."
"You can't do that to a nice, deserving fellow like him!"
"Do what?"
"That!"
Then Mrs. Samstag threw up both her hands to her face, rocking in an
agony of self-abandon that was rather horrid to behold.
"O God! why don't you put me out of it all? My misery! I'm a leper to

my own child!"
"Oh--mamma--!"
"Yes, a leper.