Part 17 (2/2)
”She'll get it. Don't worry.”
”I thought you was for fighting it.”
”I was going to fight it; but----” His slow, narrow, greenish eyes stole toward the house across the road.
”Just like that,” he said, after a slight pause; ”that's the way the little girl hit me. I'm on the level, Ben. First skirt I ever saw that I wanted to find waiting dinner for me when I come home. Get me?”
”I don't know whether I do or not.”
”Get this, then; she isn't all over paint; she's got freckles, thank G.o.d, and she smells sweet as a daisy field. Ah, what the h.e.l.l----” he burst out between his parted teeth ”--when every woman in New York smells like a chorus girl! Don't I get it all day? The whole city stinks like a star's dressing room. And I married one! And I'm through. I want to get my breath and I'm getting it.”
Stull's white features betrayed merely the morbid suffering of indigestion; he said nothing and sucked his cigar.
”I'm through,” repeated Brandes. ”I want a home and a wife--the kind that even a fly cop won't pinch on sight--the kind of little thing that's over there in that old shack. Whatever I am, I don't want a wife like me--nor kids, either.”
Stull remained sullenly unresponsive.
”Call her a hick if you like. All right, I want that kind.”
No comment from Stull, who was looking at the wrecked car.
”Understand, Ben?”
”I tell you I don't know whether I do or not!”
”Well, what don't you understand?”
”Nothin'.... Well, then, your falling for a kid like that, first crack out o' the box. I'm honest; I don't understand it.”
”She hit me that way--so help me G.o.d!”
”And you're on the level?”
”Absolutely, Ben.”
”What about the old guy and the mother? Take 'em to live with you?”
”If she wants 'em.”
Stull stared at him in uneasy astonishment:
”All right, Eddie. Only don't act foolish till Minna pa.s.ses you up.
And get out of here or you will. If you're on the level, as you say you are, you've got to mark time for a good long while yet----”
”Why?”
”You don't have to ask me that, do you?”
<script>