"Do you soak your liver first?" inquired Mrs. Epstein. "My Louie won't eat nothin' suss und sauer. It makes me so mad. I got to cook different for every one in my family. Louie won't eat this and his father won't eat that!"

"I'll give you the recipe when I give you the one for the noodles. Bella says it's the best she ever ate. My husband gets so mad when I go down in the kitchen--me with two grand girls and washerwoman two days a week!

But the girls can't cook to suit me."

"Excuse me, too, from American cookin'."

Mrs. Blondheim's interest and gaze wandered down the dining-hall.

"I wish you'd look at that Sternberger girl actin' up! Ain't it disgusting?"

"Please pa.s.s the salt, Mrs. Blondheim. That's the trouble with hotel cooking--they don't season. At home we like plenty of it, too. I season and season, and then at the table my husband has to have more."

"She wouldn't have met him at all if it hadn't been for Bella," pursued Mrs. Blondheim.

The object of Mrs. Blondheim's solicitude, fresh as spring in crisp white linen, turned her long eyes upon Mr. Arnheim.

"You ought to feel flattered, Mr. Arnheim, that I let you come over to my table."

Mr. Arnheim regarded her through a mist of fragrant coffee steam. "You betcher life I feel flattered. I'd get up earlier than this to have breakfast with a little queen."

"Ain't you ever goin' to quit jollyin'?"

He leaned across the table. "That ain't a bad linen model you're wearin'--it's domestic goods, too. Where'd you get it?"

"At Lipman's."

"I sold them a consignment last year; but, say, if you want to see real cla.s.sy white goods you ought to see some ratine cutaways I'm bringing over. I've brought a model I'm goin' to call the Phoebe Snow. It's the niftiest thing for early fall you ever saw."

"Ratine?"

"You never heard of it? That's where I get my work in--it's the new lines, the novelty stuff, that gets the money."

"Are you goin' in the surf this morning, Mr. Arnheim?"

"I'm goin' where you go, little one." He dropped two lumps of sugar into her coffee-cup. "Sweets to the sweet," he said.

"Silly!" But she giggled under her breath.

They pushed back their chairs and strolled down the aisle between the tables. She smiled brightly to her right and left.

"Good morning, Mrs. Blondheim. Is it warm enough for you?"

"Good morning," replied Mrs. Blondheim, stabbing a bit of omelet with vindictive fork.

Mrs. Epstein looked after the pair with warming eyes. "She is a stylish dresser, ain't she?"

"I wish you'd see the white linen my Bella's got. It's got sixteen yards of Cluny lace in the waist alone--and such Cluny, too! I paid a dollar and a half a yard wholesale."

"Just look at this waist I'm wearin', Mrs. Blondheim. You wouldn't think I paid three and a half for the lace, would you?"

"Oh yes; I can always tell good stuff when I see it, and I always say it pays best in the end," said Mrs. Blondheim, feeling the heavy lace edge of Mrs. Epstein's sleeve between discriminating thumb and forefinger.

Suddenly Mrs. Epstein's eyes widened; she rose to her feet, drawing a corner of the table-cloth awry. "If it ain't my Louie!"

Mr. Louis Epstein, a faithful replica of his mother, with close black hair that curled on his head like the nap of a Persian lamb, imprinted a large, moist kiss upon the maternal lips.

"h.e.l.lo, maw! Didn't you expect me?"

"Not till the ten-o'clock train, Louie. How's papa?"

"He'th fine. I left him billing thom goods to Thpokane."

"How's business, Louie?"

"Not tho bad, but pa can't get away yet for a week. The fall goods ain't all out yet."

"Ain't it awful, the way that man is all for business, Mrs. Blondheim?

This is my son Louie."

"Well, well, Mr. Epstein. I've heard a lot about you. I want you to meet my daughter Bella. You ought to make friends."

"Yeth'm," said Mr. Epstein.

Out on the clean-washed beach the sun glinted on the water and sent points of light dancing on the wavelets like bits of gla.s.s. Children in blue rompers burrowed and jangled their painted spades and pails; nursemaids planted umbrellas in the sand and watched their charges romp; parasols flashed past like gay-colored meteors.

In the white-capped surf bathers bobbed and shouted, and all along the sh.o.r.e-line the tide ran gently up the beach and down again, leaving a smooth, damp stretch of sand which soughed and sucked beneath the steps of the bathers.

Far out, where the waters were highest and the whitecaps maddest, Mr.

Arnheim held Miss Sternberger about her slim waist and raised her high over each rushing breaker. They caught the swells and lay back against the heavy tow, letting the wavelets lap up to their chins.

Mr. Arnheim, with little rivulets running down his cheeks, shook the water out of his grayish hair and looked at her with salt-bitten, red-rimmed eyes.

"Gee!" he wheezed. "You're a s.p.u.n.ky little devil! Excuse me from the beach-walkers; I like 'em when they're game like you."

She danced about like an Amphitrite. "Who would be afraid of the water with a dandy swimmer like you?"

"This ain't nothin'," said Mr. Arnheim. "You ought to see me in still water. At Arverne last summer I was the talk of the place."

They emerged from the water, dripping and heavy-footed. She wrung out her brief little skirts and stamped her feet on the sand. Mr. Arnheim hopped on one foot and then on the other, holding his head aslant.

Then they stretched out on the white, sunbaked beach. Miss Sternberger loosened her hair and it showered about her.

"Gee! 'Ain't you got a swell bunch of hair!"

She shook and fluffed it. "You ought to seen it before I had typhoid. I could sit on it then."

"That Phoebe Snow model that I got in mind for Lillian Russell would make you look like a queen, with that hair of yourn!"

She buried his arm in the sand and patted the mound. "Now," she said, "I got you, and you can't do anything without askin' me."