ectly did it
fit into place. The ghostly tread, the little whisking skip, the
half-simper, the deferential bend that had in it at the same time
something of insolence, all were there; the very "Yes, miss," and "Very
good, sir," rose automatically and correctly to his untrained lips.
Cinderella rising resplendent from her ash-strewn hearth was not more
completely transformed than Heiny in his role of Henri. And with the
transformation Miss Gussie Fink had been left behind her desk
disconsolate.

Kitchens are as quick to seize upon these things and gossip about them as
drawing rooms are. And because Miss Gussie Fink had always worn a little
air of aloofness to all except Heiny, the kitchen was the more eager to
make the most of its morsel. Each turned it over under his tongue--Tony,
the Crook, whom Miss Fink had scorned; Francois, the entree cook, who
often forgot he was married; Miss Sweeney, the bar-checker, who was
jealous of Miss Fink's complexion. Miss Fink heard, and said nothing.
She only knew that there would be no dear figure waiting for her when the
night's work was done. For two weeks now she had put on her hat and coat
and gone her way at one o'clock alone. She discovered that to be taken
home night after night under Heiny's tender escort had taught her a
ridiculous terror of the streets at night now that she was without
protection. Always the short walk from the car to the flat where Miss
Fink lived with her mother had been a glorious, star-lit, all too brief
moment. Now it was an endless and terrifying trial, a thing of shivers
and dread, fraught with horror of passing the alley just back of
Cassidey's buffet. There had even been certain little half-serious,
half-jesting talks about the future into which there had entered the
subject of a little delicatessen and restaurant in a desirable
neighborhood, with Heiny in the kitchen, and a certain blonde, neat,
white-shirtwaisted person in charge of the desk and front shop.

She and her mother had always gone through a little formula upon Miss
Fink's return from work. They never used it now. Gussie's mother was a
real mother--the kind that wakes up when you come home.

"That you, Gussie?" Ma Fink would call from the bedroom, at the sound of
the key in the lock.

"It's me, ma."

"Heiny bring you home?"

"Sure," happily.

"There's a bit of sausage left, and some pie if----"

"Oh, I ain't hungry. We stopped at Joey's downtown and had a cup of