“I told you she’d be sore at me for taking you to the Ritz ball last night, and God knows it wasn’t no pleasure in my life to go model-hunting with you, when I might have been joy-riding with my friend from Carson City.”

“It’s just because she ain’t herself yet.  I’m off, Gert.  Till seven in the Subway!”

“Yes, till seven!”

* * * * *

When Mr. Alphonse Michelson unlocked the door of his second-floor five-room apartment, a lamp softly burning through a yellow silk lamp-shade met him with the soft radiance of home.  Beside the door he divested himself of his rain-spotted mackintosh, inserted his dripping umbrella in a tall china stand, shook a little rivulet from his hat and hung it on a pair of wall antlers.

“That you, Phonzie?”

“Yes, hon, it’s me.”

’"Sh-h-h-h!”

He tiptoed down the aisle of hallway and into the soft-lighted front room.  From a mound of pillows and sleepy from their luxury Millie Moores rose to his approach, her forefinger placed across her lips and a pale mist of chiffon falling backward from her arms.

What a masseuse is Love!  The lines had faded from Millie’s face and in their place the grace of tenderness and a roundness where the chin had softened.  Years had folded back like petals, revealing the heart and the unwithered bosom of her.

He kissed her, pressing the finger of warning closer against her lips, and she patted a place for him on the Mexican afghan beside her.

“Phonzie!”

“How you feelin’, hon?”

“Strong!  If it ain’t raining to-morrow, I’m going to take him out if I have to carry him in my arms.  Say, wouldn’t I like to feel myself rolling him in one of them white-enamel, glass-top things like Van Ness has for her last one.  Ida May tried three places to get one for us.”

“They’re made special.”

“All my life I’ve wanted to feel myself wheeling him, Phonzie.  I used to dream myself doing it in the old place down on Twenty-third Street, when I used to sit at the sewing-table from eight until eight.  Gee!  I—­honest, I just can’t wait to see if the sun is shining to-morrow.”

He kissed her again on the back of each finger, and she let her hand, pale and rather inert, rest on his hair.

“Is my boy hungry for his din-din?”

“Gee! yes!  The noon appointments came so thick I had to send Eddie out to bring me a bite.”

“What kind of a day?”

“Everything smooth but the designing-room.  Gert done her best, but they don’t take hold without you, hon.  They can’t even get in their heads that gold charmeuse idea Gert and I swiped at the Ritz last night.”

“Did you tell them I’ll be back on the job next week, Phonzie?”

“Nothing doing.  You’re going to stay right here, snug in your rug, another two weeks.”

“Rave on, hon, but I got the nurse engaged for Monday.  How’s the Van Norder wedding-dress coming?”