CHAPTER XXV ISADORE'S MEDICINE
Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours? She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do with it.
Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the mystery. It was a surprise—and a disappointment—for her to recognize Isadore's voice.
"Hello, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"
"No. She got in very late last night and—"
"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."
This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.
"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message—put it under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning. We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn we've got to cover. And there's nobody here to do it. It would help a lot if Yetta could. Got that straight?—All right—much obliged."
The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way to make things come straight again.
She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something had died within her at his kiss—something new and disturbingly wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation. The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation. "Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a butterfly outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the feeling of reaching out to him.