"A younger figure than yours is getting to be wouldn't hurt the line
any, you know. It's because I make it a rule not to throw off the old
girls when their waist-lines begin to spread that makes you so grateful,
is it? There's not a firm in town keeps on a girl after she begins to
heavy up. If you got to know why I took you off the dress line and put
you in the wraps, it's because I seen you widening into a thirty-eight,
and a darn poor one at that. I can sell two wraps off Cissie to one off
you. You're getting hippy, girl, and, since you started the subject, you
can be darn glad you know where your next week's salary's coming from."

She was reddening so furiously that even her earlobes, their tips
escaping beneath the turban, were tinged.

"Maybe I--I'm getting hippy, Kess; but it'll take more than anything you
can ever do for me to make up for--"

"Gad!" he said, flipping an ash in some disgust, "I wish I had a
ten-cent piece for every one since!"

"Oh," she cried, her throat jerking, "you eat what you just said! You
eat it, because you know it ain't so!"

"Now look here," he said, straightening up suddenly, "I don't know what
your game is, but if you're here to stir up the old dust that's been
laid for five years--"

"No, no, Kess! It's only that--what I got to tell you--I--it makes a
difference, I--"

"What?"