The Dark Star

Brandes tightened his dental grip on his cigar and squinted at him

good-humouredly.

"Say, Ben," he said, "would you believe it if I told you I'm stuck on

her?"

"Ah, you'd fall for anything. I never seen a skirt you wouldn't

chase."

"I don't mean that kind."

"What kind, then?"

"This is on the level, Ben."

"What! Ah, go on! You on the level?"

"All the same, I am."

"You can't be on the level! You don't know how."

"Why?"

"You got a wife, and you know damn well you have."

"Yes, and she's getting her divorce."

Stull regarded him with habitual and sullen distrust.

"She hasn't got it yet."

"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

God, and she smells sweet as a daisy field. Ah, what the hell----" 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 God!"

"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 passes 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----"