"I can see that you miss him," I said
"I should say so," Anna broke in. "He's her pet."
"Don't mind what she says, Mr. Levinsky," her mother exhorted me. "She just loves to tease me."
"Mother is right," Elsie interposed. "Moissey is not her pet. lf somebody is, it's I, isn't it, ma?"
Anna smiled good-naturedly
"Gracie is my pet," Mrs. Tevkin rejoined
"Gracie and Moissey, both," Tevkin amended. "Moissey is her first-born, don't you know. But the great point is that he has been married only three months, and she has not yet got used to having him live somewhere else. She feels as if somebody had snatched him from her. When a day passes without her seeing him she is uneasy."
"Not at all," Mrs. Tevkin demurred. "I am thinking of him just now because—because—well, because we have all been introduced to Mr. Levinsky except him!"
"If two or three of the family were missing it wouldn't be so marked," Tevkin supported her, chivalrously. "But only one is missing, only one. That somehow makes you think of him. I feel the same way."
As he spoke it seemed to me that in his home atmosphere he bore himself with more self-confidence and repose than at the café or at his office. His hospitality had made him ill at ease at first, but that had worn off