"I'm glad you didn't tell Mother about it. She'd have worried herself sick. If she had known we both put every cent we had into the business—"
"We'll get it back ten times over. You'll see."
The sound of footsteps. "I wonder where she went. She oughtn't to be out alone. I'm kind of worried about her, Hugo. Don't you think you'd better—"
Ma Mandle opened the front door and then slammed it, ostentatiously, as though she had just come in.
"That you, Ma?" called Hugo.
He turned on the hall light. She stood there, blinking, a bent, pathetic little figure. Her eyes were averted. "Are you all right, Ma? We began to worry about you."
"I'm all right. I'm going to bed."
He made a clumsy, masculine pretence at heartiness. "Lil and I are going over to the drug store for a soda, it's so hot. Come on along, Ma."
Lil joined him in the doorway of the bedroom. Her eyes were red-rimmed behind the powder that she had hastily dabbed on, but she smiled bravely.
"Come on, Mother," she said. "It'll cool you off."