got to see you
about something. Just a quiet talk, dearie. I--I just got to see you,
Max. I--I'm sick, dog sick."

Her voice slipped up and away for the moment, and she crammed her lacy
fribble of a handkerchief tight against her lips, tiptoeing closer to
the transmitter.

"No, no, Max, I swear to God I won't! Just quiet and no rough stuff. For
my sake come home to supper to-night, dearie! I swear. It's my thigh,
and I got a fever, dearie, that's eating me. What? Eight! No, that
ain't too late. Any time you can come ain't too late. I'll wait. Sure?
Good-by, dearie. At eight sharp. Good-by, dearie."

When she replaced the receiver on its hook, points of light had come
out in her eyes like water-lilies opening on a lake. The ashen sheaf of
anxiety folded back from her, color ran up into her face, and she flung
open the door, calling down the length of hallway.

"Loo! Oh, Loo!"

"Huh?"

"Put a couple of bottles of everything on ice before you go, dearie;
order a double porterhouse; open a can of them imported sausages he sent
up last month, and peel some sweet-potatoes. Hurry, Loo, I wanna candy
'em myself. Hurry, dearie!"

She snatched up her furry trifle of a dog, burying her warming face in
his fleece.

"M-m-muvver loves her bow-bow. Muvver loves whole world. Muvver just
loves whole world. M-m-m-m, chocolate? Just one ittsie bittsie piece and
muvver eat half--m-m-m! La-la! Bow-wow! La! La!"

Along that end of Riverside Drive which is so far up that rents begin to
come down, night takes on the aspect of an American Venetian carnival.
Steamboats outlined in electric lights pass like phosphorescent phantoms
up and down the Hudson River, which reflects with the blurry infidelity
of moving waters light for light, deck for deck. Running strings of
incandescent bulbs draped up into festoons every so often by equidistant
arc-lights follow the course of the well-oiled driveway, which in turn
follows the course of the river as truly as a path made by a canal
horse. A ledge of park, narrow as a terrace, slants to the water's edge,
and of summer nights lovers drag their benches into the shadow of trees
and turn their backs to the lampposts and to the world.

From the far side of the river, against the night sky and like an
ablutionary message let slip from heaven, a soap-factory spells out
its product in terms of electric bulbs, and atop that same industrial
palisade rises the dim outline of stack and kiln. Street-car