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“It seems to me that you could find better fellows to go with than Phil Rolfe,” he said, making his tone of voice doubly nasty because he felt that he was butting his nose where it didn’t belong, and also because he didn’t know his sister or know how she would feel or act about anything important to her.

Her mouth popped open; she was too surprised to speak. “You’re a good-looking girl and you could go with a lot of nice fellows, without having dates with a Jew.”

“He’s not a Jew. He’s preparing to become a Catholic. He told me so last night,” she said.

“They wouldn’t let him in the Church, not a Jew like him,” Studs said, losing his temper because of his lack of conviction.

“You have nothing to say about what I do or whom I go with,” she said, her voice almost cracking into a sob.

“Well, if any guys like him start fooling around with my sister, I might show what I got to say,” said he.

“You’re a perfect beast. I hate you!” she said.

Her face relaxed; she cried. She turned and walked away. He was sorry.

“You leave her alone!” Fran yelled at him.

She talked to Loretta. Studs, passing back through the hall to the bathroom, heard Fran saying the same things as he had said, only in a different manner.

The father called Studs into the parlor.

“Bill, I know how you feel. I’m proud of you, proud that you would stand by your sisters. Only Bill, you know women are like a delicate instrument. You have to handle them with care. You got to be diplomatic,” Lonigan said in preparation for an outburst of platitudinous parenthood.

“All right,” said Studs.

“Bill, I had something else to tell you. Wait a minute. Don’t go yet,” Lonigan said apologetically.

“Yeah,” Studs answered with annoyance as he half turned towards his father.

“I was thinking that maybe next summer I’ll be taking myself and your mother back to the old country, and letting you manage things.”

“All right.”

“I got the business going fine. I just got that new hotel contract, and the way it looks, I’m gonna get that school contract. Of course, it’s costing me a little. You know when you want a school contract, well, you have to see the boys you’re getting it from. But I think I’ll have that sewn up just as neat as you’d like in a week or two. Well, when those two are finished, I think I’ll take a rest and let the mantle of responsibility fall on your shoulders.”

“That’s good. When will we start on that hotel?”

“In about a month. It’s a hundred-thousand-dollar job. And that school one, there’s going to be real gravy.”

“How you getting it?”

“Barney McCormack and I came to a verbal understanding today. He can fix it with the right fellows who are letting out the bids. Of course, it’ll only be fair to repay Barney for his favor, but I tell you, it’s real gravy for us, Bill.”

Studs left. His sister Loretta followed him out. He was conscious of her walking behind him, her heels clicking on the paving. She walked fast, flung her head proudly to one side, passed him. She kept a few yards in front of Studs. He was sorry he’d had the damn squabble with her. He was right, though, in trying to tell her but he hadn’t gone about it the way he might have.

He watched her. She was a pretty kid, and decent. He felt as if always, even though they’d said little to each other, they’d had sort of a bond between them. Now that was broken, and he liked her and she was a pretty kid.

She walked in front of him as far as Fifty-eighth and Indiana Avenue. He wanted to talk to her, and tell her to forget it, but he could just see himself doing that.

She turned down Indiana. He walked on over to the corner. The contracts the old man had gotten would mean dough, but lots of work. He hated everything about the goddamn work. Sometimes he felt like taking all the damn paint he could get his hands on and dumping it in the river. But it meant dough and when the old man kicked the bucket, it would be his.

“Jesus Christ!” he said, expressing an unclean and sudden disgust.

From force of habit, he walked past the drug store on down to