it mean, son, that word, 'rondy-voo'?"

"Why, I--I don't exactly know. A rendezvous--it's a sort of meeting, an
engagement, isn't it, Miss Gina? Gina? You're up on languages. As if I
had an appointment to meet you some place--at the opera-house, for
instance."

"That's it, Leon--an engagement."

"Have I an engagement with you, Gina?"

She let her lids droop. "Oh, how--how I hope you have, Leon."

"When?"

"In the spring?"

"That's it--in the spring."

Then they smiled, these two, who had never felt more than the merest
butterfly wings of love brushing them, light as lashes. No word between
them, only an unfinished sweetness, waiting to be linked up.

Suddenly there burst in Abrahm Kantor, in a carefully rehearsed gale of
bluster.

"Quick, Leon! I got the car down-stairs. Just fifteen minutes to make
the ferry. Quick! The sooner we get him over there the sooner we get him
back! I'm right, mamma? Now, now! No waterworks! Get your brother's
suit-case, Isadore. Now, now! No nonsense! Quick--quick--"