"
"No. No. No. Alma, I've been a good mother to you, haven't I?"
"Yes, mama, yes, but what--"
"Whatever else I've been hasn't been my fault--you've always blamed
Heyman."
"Mama, I don't understand."
"I've caused you worry, Alma--terrible worry. But everything is changed
now. Mama's going to turn over 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."
"Mama, you--you frighten me."
"You like Louis Latz, don't you, Alma?"
"Why yes, mama. 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."
"Mama?"
"Yes, baby. He asked me tonight. Come to me, Alma, stay with me close.
He asked me tonight."
"What?"
"You know. Haven't you seen it coming for weeks? I have."
"Seen what?"
"Don't make mama 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 tonight."
There was a curious pallor came over Miss Samstag's face, as if smeared
there by a hand.
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