“Gad! look at her blush!  I know women your age would give fifty dollars a blush to do it that way.”

She was looking away again, shoulders heaving to silent laughter, the blush still stinging.

“It’s been so—­so long, Mr. Haas, since I had compliments made to me.  You make me feel so—­silly.”

“I know it, you nice, fine woman, you; and it’s a darn shame!”

“Mr.—­Haas!”

“I mean it.  I hate to see a fine woman not get her dues.  Anyways, when she’s the finest woman of them all!”

“I—­the woman that lives to see a day like this—­her daughter the happiest girl in the world, with the finest boy in the world—­is getting her dues, all right, Mr. Haas.”

“She’s a fine girl, but she ain’t worth her mother’s little finger-nail.”

“Mr.—­Haas!”

“No, sir-ree!”

“I must be going now, Mr. Haas.  My mother—­”

“That’s right.  The minute a man tries to break the ice with this little lady, it’s a freeze-out.  Now what did I say so bad?  In business, too.  Never seen the like.  It’s like trying to swat a fly to come down on you at the right minute.  But now, with you for a nothing-in-law, I got rights.”

“If—­you ain’t the limit, Mr. Haas!”

“Don’t mind saying it, Mrs. C., and, for a bachelor, they tell me I’m not the worst judge in the world, but there’s not a woman on the floor stacks up like you do.”

“Well—­of all things!”

“Mean it.”

“My mother, Mr. Haas, she—­”

“And if anybody should ask you if I’ve got you on my mind or not, well, I’ve already got the letters out on that little matter of the passports you spoke to me about.  If there’s a way to fix that up for you, and leave it to me to find it, I—­”

She sprang now, trembling, to her feet, all the red of the moment receding.

“Mr. Haas, I—­I must go now.  My—­mother—­”

He took her arm, winding her in and out among crowded-out chairs behind the dais.

“I wish it to every mother to have a daughter like you, Mrs. C.”

“No!  No!” she said, stumbling rather wildly through the chairs.  “No!  No!  No!”

He forged ahead, clearing her path of them.

Beside the potted hydrangea, well back and yet within an easy view, Mrs. Horowitz, her gilt armchair well cushioned for the occasion, and her black grenadine spread decently about her, looked out upon the scene, her slightly palsied head well forward.

“Mama, you got enough?  You wouldn’t have missed it, eh?  A crowd of people we can be proud to entertain.  Not?  Come; sit quiet in another room for a while, and then Mr. Haas, with his nice big car, will drive us all home again.  You know Mr. Haas, dearie—­Lester’s uncle that had us drove so careful in his fine car.  You remember, dearie—­Lester’s uncle?”

Mrs. Horowitz looked up, her old face crackling to smile.

“My grandchild!  My grandchild!  She’m a fine one.  Not?  My grandchild!  My grandchild!”