“Oh, mamma!  Mamma, how I pray you’re right.”

“You’ll thank God for the day that Louis Latz proposed to me.  Why, I’d rather cut off my right hand than marry a man who could ever live to learn such a—­thing about me.”

“But it’s not fair.  We’ll have to explain to him, dear, that we hope you’re cured now, but—­”

“If you do—­if you do—­I’ll kill myself!  I won’t live to bear that!  You don’t want me cured.  You want to get rid of me, to degrade me until I kill myself!  If I was ever anything else than what I am now—­to Louis Latz—­anything but his ideal—­Alma, you won’t tell!  Kill me, but don’t tell—­don’t tell!”

“Why, you know I wouldn’t, sweetheart, if it is so terrible to you.  Never.”

“Say it again.”

“Never.”

“As if it hasn’t been terrible enough that you should have to know.  But it’s over, Alma.  Your bad times with me are finished.  I’m cured.”

There were no words that Miss Samstag could force through the choke of her tears, so she sat cheek to her mother’s cheek, the trembling she could no longer control racing through her like a chill.

“Oh—­how—­I hope so!”

“I know so.”

“But wait a little while, mamma—­just a year.”

“No!  No!”

“A few months.”

“No, he wants it soon.  The sooner the better at our age.  Alma, mamma’s cured!  What happiness!  Kiss me, darling.  So help me God to keep my promises to you!  Cured, Alma, cured.”

And so in the end, with a smile on her lips that belied almost to herself the little run of fear through her heart, Alma’s last kiss to her mother that night was the long one of felicitation.

And because love, even the talk of it, is so gamy on the lips of woman to woman, they lay in bed, heartbeat to heartbeat, the electric pad under her pillow warm to the hurt of Mrs. Samstag’s brow, and talked, these two, deep into the stilliness of the hotel night.

“I’m going to be the best wife to him, Alma.  You see, the woman that marries Louis has to measure up to the grand ideas of her he got from his mother.”

“You were a good wife once, mamma.  You’ll be it again.”

“That’s another reason, Alma; it means my—­cure.  Living up to the ideas of a good man.”

“Mamma!  Mamma! you can’t backslide now—­ever.”

“My little baby, who’s helped me through such bad times, it’s your turn now, Alma, to be care free like other girls.”

“I’ll never leave you, mamma, even if—­he—­Latz—­shouldn’t want me.”

“He will, darling, and does!  Those were his words.  ‘A room for Alma.’”

“I’ll never leave you!”

“You will!  Much as Louis and I want you with us every minute, we won’t stand in your way!  That’s another reason I’m so happy, Alma.  I’m not alone any more now.  Leo’s so crazy over you, just waiting for the chance to—­pop—­”

“Shh—­sh—­h—­h!”