Miss Shongut ripped open the letter with a hairpin and curled her supple figure in a roomy curve of the divan. Her hair, unloosened, fell in a thick, black cascade down her back.
Mrs. Shongut redusted the mantel, raising each piece of bric-a-brac carefully; ran her cloth across the piano keys, giving out a discord; straightened the piano cover; repolished the mantelpiece mirror.
Her daughter read, blew the envelope open at its ripped end and inserted the letter. Her eyes, gray as dawn, met her mother's.
"Well, Renie, is—is he well?"
Silence.
"You're afraid, I guess, it gives me a little pleasure if I know what he has to say. A girl gets a letter from a man like Max Hochenheimer, of Cincinnati, and sits like a funeral!"
Rena unfolded herself from the divan and slid to her feet, slim as a sibyl.
"I knew it!"
"Knew what?"
"He's coming!"