carefully; ran her cloth across the piano keys, giving out a discord;
straightened the piano cover; repolished the mantelpiece mirror.

Her daughter read, blew the envelope open at its ripped end and inserted
the letter. Her eyes, gray as dawn, met her mother's.

"Well, Renie, is--is he well?"

Silence.

"You're afraid, I guess, it gives me a little pleasure if I know what he
has to say. A girl gets a letter from a man like Max Hochenheimer, of
Cincinnati, and sits like a funeral!"

Rena unfolded herself from the divan and slid to her feet, slim as a
sibyl.

"I knew it!"

"Knew what?"

"He's coming!"

"Coming? What?"

"He left Cincinnati last night and gets here this morning."

"This morning!"

"He comes on business, he says. And at five o'clock he stops in at the