"No, no, please, Mrs. Meyerburg. It just looks like every time what I come you got to give me something. Ashamed it makes me. Please you shouldn't."
But in the pleasant frenzy of sudden decision Mrs. Meyerburg was on her knees beside a carved chest, burrowing her arm beneath folded garments, the high smell of camphor exuding.
"Only yesterday in my hand I had it. There! See! Just your size!" She held the creased garment out from her by each shoulder, blowing the nap of the beaver collar.
"Please, no, Mrs. Meyerburg. Such a fine coat maybe you can wear it yourself. No, I don't mean that, when you got such grander ones; but for me, Mrs. Meyerburg, it's too fine to take. Please!"
Standing there holding it thrust enthusiastically forward, a glaze suddenly formed over Mrs. Meyerburg's eyes and she laid her cheek to the brown fur collar, a tear dropping to it.
"You'm right, Mrs. Fischlowitz, I—I can't give this up. I—he—a coat he bought once for me at auction when—he oser could afford it. I—you must excuse me, Mrs. Fischlowitz."
"That's right, Mrs. Meyerburg, for a remembrance you should keep it."
Then brightening: "But I got in the next room, Mrs. Fischlowitz, a coat better as this for you. Lined all in squirrel-skin they call it. One day by myself I bought it, and how my Becky laughs and won't even let me wear it in automobile. I ain't stylish enough, she says."
With an inarticulate medley of sounds Mrs. Fischlowitz held up a hand of remonstrance. "But—"
"Na, na, just a minute." And on the very wings of her words Mrs. Meyerburg was across the room, through the ornate door of an ornate boudoir, and out presently with the garment flung across her arm. "Na, here put it on."