ious brunette roots to her light
hair. That sink with the grease-rimmed old beer! But then: her eyes
where the brows slid down to make them heavy-lidded. That bit of blue
vein in the crotch of her elbow. That swany arch.

Back somewhere, as the tidy morning wore in, the tranced, the maddening
repetition began to tick itself through:

"Six o'clock. Six o'clock."

He rushed out into the hallway and across to the parlor pinkly lit with
velours, even through the rainy day, and so inflexibly calm. Sara might
have measured the distance between the chairs, so regimental they
stood. The pink-velour curlicue divan with the two pink, gold-tasseled
cushions, carelessly exact. The onyx-topped table with the pink-velour
drape, also gold-tasseled. The pair of equidistant and immaculate china
cuspidors, rose-wreathed. The smell of Sunday.

"Nicky, that you?"

It was his mother, from the dining room.

"Yes, mother," and sauntered in.

There were two women sitting at the round table, shelling nuts. One of
them his mother, the other Miss Ada Berkowitz, who jumped up, spilling
hulls.

Nicholas, in the velveteen dressing gown with the collar turned up,
started to back out, Mrs. Turkletaub spoiling that.

"You can come in, Nicky. Ada'll excuse you. I guess she's seen a man in
his dressing gown before; the magazine advertisements are full with
them in worse and in less. And on Sunday with a headache from all week
working so hard, a girl can forgive. He shouldn't think with his head so
much, I always tell him, Ada."

"I didn't know he was here," said Miss Berkowitz, already thinking in
terms of what she might have worn.

"I telephoned over for Ada, Nicky. They got an automobile and she don't
need to get her feet wet to come over to a lonesome old woman on a
rainy Sunday, to spend the day and learn me how to make those delicious
stuffed dates like she fixed for her mother's card party last week. Draw
up a chair, Nicky, and help."

She was casual, she was matter-of-fact, she was bent on the business
of nut cracking. They crashed softly, never so much as bruised by her
carefully even pressure.

"Thanks," said Nicholas, and sat down, not caring to, but with good
enough grace. He wanted his coat, somehow, and fell to strumming the
table top.

"Don't, Nicky; you make me nervous."

"Here," said Miss Berkowitz, and gave him a cracker and a handful of
nuts. The little crashings resumed.

Ada had very fair skin against dark hair,