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“When I came home tonight, I said to Mother, `See, you thought that I had no will power? For lunch, I only drank a glass of milk. Now what do you think of that?’ And she smiled as if she had to force herself to believe me, and she said that she was surprised that I was able to go this far. She doesn’t think I can keep it up much longer. And Dad at the supper table, he just laughed at me and tried to tease me. Dad, he’s such a sweet old darling, but he is a great teaser, and ever since I can remember he has always teased me. But I resisted his effort to tempt me, and I only had a half a bowl of tomato soup with a few bread crumbs in it, and a glass of milk.”

Studs shook his head.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” she said, staring at him.

“Why, yes... That’s swell.”

“My, my, what enthusiasm,” she laughed.

“I meant .. .” he said, trying to be convincing.

She freed herself from his grasp, and moved to a shop window. Tagging after her, Studs thought that, gee, they had taken a long time to walk a block.

“Look at that dress. It has a high waist line, and high waist lines are coming in and oh, dear, I’m much too short for them. Isn’t that awful now? Men never have such ,troubles over their clothes as girls do. And that’s such a pretty dress. Oh, it makes me almost sick. And you can see that they are all going to be longer too. Look, Bill, at that gorgeous black crepe. It’s only twelve dollars. Clothes are dirt cheap now.”

She pointed, Studs mumbled agreement, a sound which seemed to remain stuck in his throat and to be cast out only as a reverberation of breath that failed to become a word.

Just how was he going to pop the question? Because, he knew now, without any doubt at all, that Catherine was the right girl. And he could see the two of them, after they were married, walking along Seventy-first Street on a hot summer evening, old friends of his seeing Catherine on his arm, Studs Lonigan’s woman.

The traffic lights delayed them at Wabash Avenue. Studs, with a feeling of manly responsibility, firmly clasped her elbow.

“But, Bill, you haven’t told me a word about your trip or the funeral?” she said as they again stepped onto the side-walk.

“Oh, it was all right,” he said laconically.

“All right! I wouldn’t say that that’s a good way to describe a funeral,” she smiled.

“It was a good funeral,” he said, embarrassed.

“Were many people there?”

“Well, there wasn’t too many, and still it was not so awfully small, either. And, you know, I felt sorry about poor Shrimp.”

“I didn’t know him, did I?”

“No, he used to live around Fifty-eighth Street,” Studs said.

“From what I’ve heard of Fifty-eighth Street, I would say it must have been some neighborhood,” she remarked.

“It was,” Studs said proudly.

“I wouldn’t need to be told that, not after the way I have heard you and Red Kelly rave about it. And say, isn’t his wife rather sweet?”

Studs wanted to tell Catherine that Red’s wife was not as sweet nor as pretty as she was, but the words choked up on him, and Catherine continued, “And Red, he just thinks the world of her, doesn’t he? He thinks there’s not another girl that can even be compared with her. Of course, though,” her voice seemed to become wistful, and Studs wondered if she was fishing for him to say something, “that is the only way he should feel about her, since he married her, because marriage is a serious business, and people, when they start thinking of getting married, have to feel that way about each other.” She looked up at him, and he wondered was she hinting and giving him his chance. He noticed that she suddenly turned her eyes aside to stare at a passing girl who wore a long black coat. And hadn’t she pronounced the word marriage a little queerly?

“Well, she’s his wife,” he said.

Lacking words, still not sure what she meant and whether she meant anything more than her words, he looked at her, and she still glanced away. He held his eyes on her, hoping that she would turn and see in his eyes all the things that he did