pectability would
sink under her feet. For years she carried that silver about wrapped in
trunks full of the precious linen, and in old underwear and cotton
flannel kimonos and Sam's silk socks and Maxine's discarded
baby-clothes. She clung to it desperately, as other women cling to
jewels, knowing that when this is gone no more will follow.

When the child was born Milly Pardee wanted to name her Myrtle but her
husband had said, suddenly, "No, call her Maxine."

"After whom?" In Mrs. Pardee's code you named a child "after" someone.

He had seen Maxine Elliott in the heyday of her cold, clear, brainless
beauty, with her great, slightly protuberant eyes set so far apart, her
exquisitely chiselled white nose, and her black black hair. She had
thrilled him.

"After my Uncle Max that lives in--uh--Australia."

"I've never heard you talk of any Uncle Max," said Mrs. Pardee, coldly.

But the name had won. How could they know that Maxine would grow up to
be a rather bony young woman who preferred these high-collared white
silk blouses; and said "eyether."

Maxine had been about twelve when Okoochee beckoned Sam Pardee. They
were living in Chicago at the time; had been there for almost three
years--that is, Mrs. Pardee and Maxine had been there. Sam was in and
out on some mysterious business of his own. His affairs were always
spoken of as "deals" or "propositions." And they always, seemingly,
required his presence in a city other than that in which they were
living--if living can be said to describe the exceedingly impermanent
perch to which they clung. They had a four-room flat. Maxine was
attending a good school. Mrs. Pardee was using the linen and silver
daily. There was a linen closet down the hall, just off the dining room.
You could open the door and feast your eyes on orderly piles of neatly
laundered towels, sheets, tablecloths, napkins, tea towels. Mrs. Pardee
marketed and cooked, contentedly. She was more than a merely good cook;
she was an alchemist in food stuffs. Given such raw ingredients as
butter, sugar, flour, eggs, she could evolve a structure of pure gold
that melted on the tongue. She could take an ocherous old hen, dredge
its parts in flour, brown it in fat sizzling with onion at the bottom of
an iron kettle, add water, a splash of tomato and a pinch of seasoning,
and bear triumphantly to the table a platter heaped with tender
fricassee over which a smooth, saddle-brown gravy simmered fragrantly.
S