reading, and her cheek
was a little flushed and crumpled from where it had been resting in the
palm of her hand.

"Mamma," she said, coming out of the circle of light and switching on
the ceiling bulbs, "you stayed down so late."

There was a slow prettiness to Alma. It came upon you like a little
dawn, palely at first and then pinkening to a pleasant consciousness
that her small face was heart-shaped and clear as an almond, that the
pupils of her gray eyes were deep and dark, like cisterns, and to young
Leo Friedlander (rather apt the comparison, too) her mouth was exactly
the shape of a small bow that had shot its quiverful of arrows into his
heart.

And instead of her eighteen she looked sixteen, there was that kind of
timid adolescence about her, and yet when she said, "Mamma, you stayed
down so late," the bang of a little pistol shot was back somewhere in
her voice.

"Why--Mr. Latz--and--I--sat and talked."

An almost imperceptible nerve was dancing against Mrs. Samstag's right
temple. Alma could sense, rather than see, the ridge of pain.

"You're all right, mamma?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Samstag, and sat down on a divan, its naked greenness
relieved by a thrown scarf of black velvet stenciled in gold.

"You shouldn't have remained down so long if your head is hurting," said
her daughter, and quite casually took up her mother's beaded hand bag
where it had fallen in her lap, but her fingers feeling lightly and
furtively as if for the shape of its contents.

"Stop that," said Mrs. Samstag, jerking it back, a dull anger in her
voice.

"Come to bed, mamma. If you're in for neuralgia, I'll fix the electric
pad."

Suddenly Mrs. Samstag shot out her arm, rather slim-looking in the
invariable long sleeve she affected, drawing Alma back toward her by the
ribbon sash of her pretty chiffon frock.

"Alma, be good to mamma to-night! Sweetheart--be good to her."

The quick suspecting fear that had motivated Miss Samstag's groping
along the beaded hand bag shot out again in her manner.

"Mamma--you haven't--?"

"No, no! Don't nag me. It's something else, Alma. Something mamma is
very happy about."

"Mamma, you've broken your promise again."

"No! No! No! Alma, I've been a good mother to you, haven't I?"

"Yes, mamma, yes, but what--"

"Whatever else I've been hasn't been my fault--you've always blamed
Heyman."

"Mamma, I don't understand."

"I've caused you worry, Alma--terrible worry. I know that. But
e