"Well, I'm doing it, ain't I?"
"Now, Miriam, you and Izzy go in the parlor and sing for mamma a little."
Miriam's small teeth met in a small click, her voice lay under careful control and as if each nerve was twanging like a plucked violin string.
"Please, mamma, please! I just can't sing to-night!"
She was like a Jacque rose, dark and swaying, her little bosom beneath the sheer blouse rising higher than its wont.
"Please, mamma!"
"Ach, now, Miriam!"
"Where's those steamship pamphlets, mamma, I left laying here on the table?"
"Right here where you left them, Miriam."
Mr. Isadore Binswanger executed a two-stride dash for the couch, plunging into a nest of pillows and piling them high about his head and ears.