couldn't have satisfied a young girl like that, or her me, Carrie, any
more than I could satisfy Alma. It was one of those mamma-made matches
that we got into because we couldn't help it and out of it before it was
too late. No, no, Carrie, what I want is a woman as near as possible to
my own age."

"Loo, I--I couldn't start in with you even with the one little lie that
gives every woman a right to be a liar. 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!"