“Ach, du Himmel!  Right away off that cap comes, Simon!  With my own hands right away out of sight I hide it.  Just once I want Miriam should see you in that skull-hat!  Right away off you take it, Simon!”

“Ach, Carrie, on my own head I—­”

“I tell you already ten times I wish I was back in my flat.  I guess you think it’s a good feeling I got to lock up my flat for Himmel knows who to break in, and my son Isadore ’way out in Ohio and not even here to—­to say to his mother good-by.  Already with such a smell on this boat and my feelings I got a homesickness I don’t wish on my worst enemy.  My boy should be left like this in America all alone!”

“Ach, Carrie, for why—­”

Of a sudden Mrs. Binswanger’s face fell into soft creases, her eyes closed, and cold tears oozed through, zigzagging downward.  “My boy out West with—­”

“Na, na, Carrie!  Don’t you worry our Izzy don’t take care of hisself better as you.  For what his expense accounts are—­always a parlor car he has to have—­he can take care of hisself twice better as us, mamma.  Mamma, you should feel fine now we got started.  I wish, mamma, you could see such a card-room and such a dining-room they got up-stairs—­gold chairs like you never seen.  We should go up on deck, Carrie, and—­”

“Ach, Simon, Simon, why don’t that child come!  So nearly crazy I never was in my life.  And now on top my Ray gone too.  In a few minutes the boat sails, and I don’t know yet if I got a child on board.  I tell you, Simon, when Ray comes back I think it’s better we carry off our trunks and—­”

“Na, na, mamma, hear out in the hall.  I told you so!  Didn’t I tell you they come?  You hear now Miriam’s voice.  Didn’t I tell you, didn’t I tell you?”

“Mamma, papa, here we are!”

And in the doorway the hesitant form of erstwhile Miriam Binswanger, her eyes dim as if obscured by a fog of tulle, over one shoulder the flushed face of Mr. Irving Shapiro, and in turn over his the dark, quick features of Ray, flashing their quick expressions.

“I—­I found ’em, mamma, just coming on board.”

A white flame of anger seemed suddenly to lick dry the two tears that staggered down Mrs. Binswanger’s plump cheeks.

“I tell you, Miriam, you got a lots of regards for your parents.”

“But, mamma, we—­”

“A child what can worry her mother like this!  Ten minutes before we sail on board she comes just like nothing had happened.  I should think, Mr. Shapiro, that a young man what can hold a responsible position like you, would see as a young girl what he invites out to lunch should have more regards for her parents as you both.”

“Mamma, you—­But just wait, mamma.”

Miriam stepped half resolutely into the room, peeling the glove from off her left hand, and her glance here and there and everywhere with the hither and thither of a wind-blown leaf.

“Mamma, guess what—­what we—­we got to tell you?  Mamma, we—­Irving, you—­you tell,” Her bared hand fell like a quivering wing and she shrank back against his gray tweed coat-sleeve.  “Irving, you tell!”