Her face was
serious now, grey ever, warm with a grey sorrow. Her lips moved: they
knew not what to say.
"How are you, Esther?"
"Oh, I am well, Mrs. Rabinowich. Thank you." A voice resonant and deep,
a voice mellowed by long keeping in the breast of a woman.
"Why don't you come round, some time, Esther? You know, I should always
be so glad to see you."
"Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowich."
"You know--we're just next door," the older woman smiled. "You got time,
I think. More time than I."
"Oh, she got time all right!" The sharp words flash from the soft mouth
of Meyer, who sews and seems in no way one with the sharp words of his
mouth. Esther does not look. She takes the words as if like stones they
had fallen in her lap. She smiles away. She is still. And Lotte
Rabinowich is still, looking at her with a deep wonder, shaking her
head, unappeased in her search.
She turns at last to her boy: relieved.
"Come Herbert, now. Now we really got to go."
She takes his hand that he lets limply rise. She pulls him gently.
"Good night, dear ones.--Do come, some time, Esther--yes?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowich."
Meyer says: "Let the boy come when he wants. We love to have him."
His mother smiles.--Of course: who would not love to have him? Good
heart, fine boy, dear child.
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