But after a while the greengrocer came on his monthly mission, in his white apron and shirt-sleeves, and she compared stubs with him from a file on her desk and balanced her account with careful squinted glance and a keen eye for an overcharge on a cut of breakfast bacon.
On the very heels of him, so that they met and danced to pass each other in the doorway, Mr. Vetsburg entered, with an overcoat flung across his right arm and his left sagging to a small black traveling-bag.
"Well," he said, standing in the frame of the open door, his derby well back on his head and regarding her there beside the small desk, "is this what you call ready at twelve?"
She rose and moved forward in her crackly starched apron. "I—Please, Mr.
Vetsburg, it ain't right, I know!"
"You don't mean you're not going!" he exclaimed, the lifted quality immediately dropping from his voice.
"You—you got to excuse me again, Mr. Vetsburg. It ain't no use I should try to get away on Saturdays, much less Easter Saturday."
"Well, of all things!"
"Right away, the last minute, Mr. Vetsburg, right one things after another."
He let his bag slip to the floor.
"Maybe, Mrs. Kaufman," he said, "it ain't none of my business, but ain't it a shame a good business woman like you should let herself always be tied down to such a house like she was married to it?"