"What these beets need is a little sugar."
She passed him the bowl; elevated her left foot in its slightly soiled white slipper to the footstool; fastened her napkin to her florid bosom with one of her numerous display of breastpins; poured some opaque wine into his glass, coming back to flood her own to the brim; smiled at him across the red head of the potted geranium, as if when the heart bleeds the heart grows light.
"Here's to you, Max!"
He raised his glass and drank in through his rather heavy mustache, then flecked it this way and that with his napkin "Ahh-h-h-h, that's the stuff!"
"S'more?"
"Yah-h-h-h-h-h!"
"Such a cotton mouth my bad boy brought home."
"Aha! Fee, fie, fum! Aha!"
"I broiled it under the single burner, Max, slow like you like. Here, you carve it, dearie. Just like always, eh?"
His fleshy, blue-shaved face took on the tenseness of concentrated effort, and he cut deep into the oozing beef, the red juice running out in quick streams.