The noon hour was not yet over, but Shenah Pessah returned to her machine. “Shall I tell him?” she mused. “Sam Arkin understands so much, shall I tell him of this man that burns in me? If I could only give out to some one about him in my heart—it would make me a little clear in the head.” She glanced at Sam Arkin furtively. “He’s kind, but could he understand? I only made a fool from myself trying to tell Sadie Kranz.” All at once she began to sob without reason. She ran to the cloak-room and hid from prying eyes, behind the shawls and wraps. The emptiness of all for which she struggled pressed upon her like a dead weight, dragging her down, down—the reaction of her ecstasy.
As the gong sounded, she made a desperate effort to pull herself together and returned to her work.
The six o’clock whistles still reverberated when Sam Arkin hurried down the factory stairs and out to the corner where he was to meet Shenah Pessah. He cleared his throat to greet her as she came, but all he managed was a bashful grin. She was so near, so real, and he had so much to say—if he only knew how to begin.
He cracked his knuckles and bit his finger-tips, but no words came. “Ach! You yok! Why ain’t you saying something?” He wrestled with his shyness in vain. The tense silence remained unbroken till they reached her house.
“I’m sorry”—Shenah Pessah colored apologetically—“But I got no place to invite you. My room is hardly big enough for a push-in of one person.”
“What say you to a bite of eating with me?” he blurted.
She thought of her scant supper upstairs and would have responded eagerly, but glancing down at her clothes, she hesitated. “Could I go dressed like this in a restaurant?”
“You look grander plain, like you are, than those twisted up with style. I’ll take you to the swellest restaurant on Grand Street and be proud with you!”
She flushed with pleasure. “Nu, come on, then. It’s good to have a friend that knows himself on what’s in you and not what’s on you, but still, when I go to a place, I like to be dressed like a person so I can feel like a person.”
“You’ll yet live to wear diamonds that will shine up the street when you pass!” he cried.