The Vertical City | Page 5

we got into because we couldn't help it and out of it before it was too late. No, no, Carrie, what I want is a woman as near as possible to my own age."
"Loo, I--I couldn't start in with you even with the one little lie that gives every woman a right to be a liar. I'm forty-three, Louis--nearer to forty-four. You're not mad, Loo?"
"God love it! If that ain't a little woman for you! Mad? Why, just your doing that little thing with me raises your stock fifty per cent."
"I'm--that way."
"We're a lot alike, Carrie. For five years I've been living in this hotel because it's the best I can do under the circumstances. But at heart I'm a home man, Carrie, and unless I'm pretty much off my guess, you are, too--I mean a home woman. Right?"
"Me all over, Loo. Ask Alma if--"
"I've got the means, too, Carrie, to give a woman a home to be proud of."
"Just for fun, ask Alma, Loo, if one year since her father's death I haven't said, 'Alma, I wish I had the heart to go back housekeeping.'"
"I knew it!"
"But I ask you, Louis, what's been the incentive? Without a man in the house I wouldn't have the same interest. That first winter after my husband died I didn't even have the heart to take the summer covers off the furniture. Alma was a child then, too, so I kept asking myself, 'For what should I take an interest?' You can believe me or not, but half the time with just me to eat it, I wouldn't bother with more than a cold snack for supper, and everyone knew what a table we used to set. But with no one to come home evenings expecting a hot meal--"
"You poor little woman! I know how it is. Why, if I so much as used to telephone that I couldn't get home for supper, right away I knew the little mother would turn out the gas under what was cooking and not eat enough herself to keep a bird alive."
"Housekeeping is no life for a woman alone. On the other hand, Mr. Latz--Louis--Loo, on my income, and with a daughter growing up, and naturally anxious to give her the best, it hasn't been so easy. People think I'm a rich widow, and with her father's memory to consider and a young lady daughter, naturally I let them think it, but on my seventy-four hundred a year it has been hard to keep up appearances in a hotel like this. Not that I think you think I'm a rich widow, but just the same, that's me every time. Right out with the truth from the start."
"It shows you're a clever little manager to be able to do it."
"We lived big and spent big while my husband lived. He was as shrewd a jobber in knit underwear as the business ever saw, but--well, you know how it is. Pneumonia. I always say he wore himself out with conscientiousness."
"Maybe you don't believe it, Carrie, but it makes me happy what you just said about money. It means I can give you things you couldn't afford for yourself. I don't say this for publication, Carrie, but in Wall Street alone, outside of my brokerage business, I cleared eighty-six thousand last year. I can give you the best. You deserve it, Carrie. Will you say yes?"
"My daughter, Loo. She's only eighteen, but she's my shadow--I lean on her so."
"A sweet, dutiful girl like Alma would be the last to stand in her mother's light."
"But remember, Louis, you're marrying a little family."
"That don't scare me."
"She's my only. We're different natured. Alma's a Samstag through and through. Quiet, reserved. But she's my all, Louis. I love my baby too much to--to marry where she wouldn't be as welcome as the day itself. She's precious to me, Louis."
"Why, of course! You wouldn't be you if she wasn't. You think I would want you to feel different?"
"I mean--Louis--no matter where I go, more than with most children, she's part of me, Loo. I--Why, that child won't so much as go to spend the night with a girl friend away from me. Her quiet ways don't show it, but Alma has character! You wouldn't believe it, Louis, how she takes care of me."
"Why, Carrie, the first thing we pick out in our new home will be a room for her."
"Loo!"
"Not that she will want it long, the way I see that young rascal Friedlander sits up to her. A better young fellow and a better business head you couldn't pick for her. Didn't that youngster go out to Dayton the other day and land a contract for the surgical fittings for a big new clinic out there before the local firms even rubbed the