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.
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