She caught up a litter of dainty pink frills in the making, clearing a chair for him.

“Sit down, Mr. Vetsburg.”

They adjusted themselves around the shower of gaslight.  Miss Kaufman fumbling in her flowered work-bag, finally curling her foot up under her, her needle flashing and shirring through one of the pink flounces.

“Ruby, in such a light you shouldn’t strain your eyes.”

“All right, ma,” stitching placidly on.

“What’ll you give me, Ruby, if I tell you whose favorite color is pink?”

“Aw, Vetsy!” she cried, her face like a rose, “your color’s pink!”

From the depths of an inverted sewing-machine top Mrs. Kaufman fished out another bit of the pink, ruffling it with deft needle.

The flute lifted its plaintive voice, feeling for high C.

Mr. Vetsburg lighted a loosely wrapped cigar and slumped in his chair.

“If anybody,” he observed, “should ask right this minute where I’m at, tell ’em for me, Mrs. Kaufman, I’m in the most comfortable chair in the house.”

“You should keep it, then, up in your room, Mr. Vetsburg, and not always bring it down again when I get Annie to carry it up to you.”

“Say, I don’t give up so easy my excuse for dropping in evenings.”

“Honest, you—­you two children, you ought to have a fence built around you the way you like always to be together.”

He sat regarding her, puffing and chewing his live cigar.  Suddenly he leaped forward, his hand closing rigidly over hers.

“Mrs. Kaufman!”

“What?”

“Quick, there’s a hole in your chin.”

“Gott! a—­a—­what?”

At that he relaxed at his own pleasantry, laughing and shrugging.  With small white teeth Miss Kaufman bit off an end of thread.

“Don’t let him tease you, ma; he’s after your dimple again.”

“Ach, du—­tease, you!  Shame!  Hole in my chin he scares me with!”

She resumed her work with a smile and a twitching at her lips that she was unable to control.  A warm flow of air came in, puffing the lace curtains.  A faint odor of departed splendor lay in that room, its high calcimined ceiling with the floral rosette in the center, the tarnished pier-glass tilted to reflect a great pair of walnut folding-doors which cut off the room where once it had flowed on to join the great length of salon parlor.  A folding-bed with an inlay of mirror and a collapsible desk arrangement backed up against those folding-doors.  A divan with a winding back and sleek with horsehair was drawn across a corner, a marble-topped bureau alongside.  A bronze clock ticked roundly from the mantel, balanced at either side by a pair of blue-glass cornucopias with warts blown into them.

Mrs. Kaufman let her hands drop idly in her lap and her head fell back against the chair.  In repose the lines of her mouth turned up, and her throat, where so often the years eat in first, was smooth and even slender above the rather round swell of bosom.