"But, mama--"

"Is it natural, Mr. Vetsburg, I should want to work off my hands my daughter should escape that? Nothing, Mr. Vetsburg, gives me so much pleasure she should go with all those rich girls who like her well enough poor to be friends with her. Always when you take her down to Atlantic City on holidays, where she can meet 'em, it--it--"

"But, mommy, is it any fun for a girl to keep taking trips like that with--with her mother always at home like a servant? What do people think?

Every holiday that Vetsy asks me, you--you back out. I--I won't go without you, mommy, and--and I _want_ to go, ma, I--I _want_ to!"

"My Easter dinner and--"

"You, Mrs. Kaufman, with your Easter dinner! Ruby's right. When your mama don't go this time not one step we go by ourselves--ain't it?"

"Not a step."

"But--"

"To-morrow, Mrs. Kaufman, we catch that one-ten train. Twelve o'clock I call in for you. Put ginger in your mama, Ruby, and we'll open her eyes on the boardwalk--not?"

"Oh, Vetsy!"

He smiled, regarding her.

Tears had fallen and dried on Mrs. Kaufman's cheeks; she wavered between a hysteria of tears and laughter.

"I--children--" She succ.u.mbed to tears, daubing her eyes shamefacedly.

He rose kindly. "Say, when such a little thing can upset her it's high time she took for herself a little rest. If she backs out, we string her up by the thumbs--not, Ruby?"

"We're going, ma. Going! You'll love the Markovitchs' hotel, ma dearie, right near the boardwalk, and the grandest gla.s.sed-in porch and--and chairs, and--and nooks, and things. Ain't they, Vetsy?"

"Yes, you little Ruby, you," he said, regarding her with warm, insinuating eyes, even crinkling an eyelid in a wink.

She did not return the glance, but caught her cheeks in the vise of her hands as if to stem the too quick flush. "Now you--you quit!" she cried, flashing her back upon him in quick pink confusion.

"She gets mad yet," he said, his shoulders rising and falling in silent laughter.

"Don't!"

"Well," he said, clicking the door softly after him, "good night and sleep tight."

"'Night, Vetsy."

Upon the click of that door Mrs. Kaufman leaned softly forward in her chair, speaking through a scratch in her throat. "Ruby!"

With her flush still high, Miss Kaufman danced over toward her parent, then as suddenly ebbed in spirit, the color going. "Why, mommy, what--what you crying for, dearie? Why, there's nothing to cry for, dearie, that we're going off on a toot to-morrow. Honest, dearie, like Vetsy says, you're all nerves. I bet from the way Suss hollered at you to-day about her extra milk you're upset yet. Wouldn't I give her a piece of my mind, though! Here, move your chair, mommy, and let me pull down the bed."

"I--I'm all right, baby. Only I just tell you it's enough to make anybody cry we should have a friend like we got in Vetsburg. I--I tell you, baby, they just don't come better than him. Not, baby? Don't be ashamed to say so to mama."

"I ain't, mama! And, honest, his--his whole family is just that way.

Sweet-like and generous. Wait till you see the way his sister and brother-in-law will treat us at the hotel to-morrow. And--and Leo, too."

"I always say the day what Meyer Vetsburg, when he was only a clerk in the firm, answered my furnished-room advertis.e.m.e.nt was the luckiest day in my life."

"You ought to heard, ma. I was teasing him the other day, telling him that he ought to live at the Savoy, now that he's a two-thirds member of the firm."

"Ruby!"

"I was only teasing, ma. You just ought to seen his face. Any day he'd leave us!"

Mrs. Kaufman placed a warm, insinuating arm around her daughter's slim waist, drawing her around the chair-side and to her. "There's only one way, baby, Meyer Vetsburg can ever leave me and make me happy when he leaves."

"Ma, what you mean?"

"You know, baby, without mama coming right out in words."

"Ma, honest I don't. What?"

"You see it coming just like I do. Don't fool mama, baby."

The slender lines of Miss Kaufman's waist stiffened, and she half slipped from the embrace.

"Now, now, baby, is it wrong a mother should talk to her own baby about what is closest in both their hearts?"

"I--I--mama, I--I don't know!"

"How he's here in this room every night lately, Ruby, since you--you're a young lady. How right away he follows us up-stairs. How lately he invited you every month down at Atlantic City. Baby, you ain't blind, are you?"

"Why, mama--why, mama, what is Meyer Vetsburg to--to me? Why, he--he's got gray hair, ma; he--he's getting bald. Why, he--he don't know I'm on earth.

He--he's--"

"You mean, baby, he don't know anybody else is on earth. What's, nowadays, baby, a man forty? Why--why, ain't mama forty-one, baby, and didn't you just say yourself for sisters they take us?"

"I know, ma, but he--he--. Why, he's got an accent, ma, just like old man Katz and--and all of 'em. He says 'too-sand' for thousand. He--"

"Baby, ain't you ashamed like it makes any difference how a good man talks?" She reached out, drawing her daughter by the wrists down into her lap. "You're a bad little flirt, baby, what pretends she don't know what a blind man can see."

Miss Kaufman's eyes widened, darkened, and she tugged for the freedom of her wrists. "Ma, quit scaring me!"

"Scaring you! That such a rising man like Vetsburg, with a business he worked himself into president from clerk, looks every day more like he's falling in love with you, should scare you!"

"Ma, not--not him!"

In reply she fell to stroking the smooth black plaits, wound coronet fashion about Miss Kaufman's small head. Large, hot tears sprang to her eyes. "Baby, when you talk like that it's you that scares mama!"

"He--he--"

"Why, you think, Ruby, I been making out of myself a servant like you call it all these years except for your future? For myself a smaller house without such a show and maybe five or six roomers without meals, you think ain't easier as this big barn? For what, baby, you think I always want you should have extravagances maybe I can't afford and should keep up with the fine girls what you meet down by Atlantic City if it ain't that a man like Meyer Vetsburg can be proud to choose you from the best?"

"Mama! mama!"