Mrs. Bertha Loeb reached out her hand with its wide marriage band slightly indented in flesh; the back of that hand was speckled with large, lightish freckles and trembled slightly.
"Sadie, ain't there just no way we can make you feel happy in St. Louis? Last night through the door to my room I couldn't help hear again you and Herman with a scene. Take your feet down off the plush, Sadie."
"Oh yes, you heard, all right."
"'Ain't you got a good home here, Sadie? Everything in the world a girl could wish for! A husband as good as gold, like his poor dead father before him. 'Ain't we done everything, me and my Etta, to make you feel how—how glad we are to have you for our Hermie's wife?"
"Oh, I know, I know."
"What maybe we felt in the beginning—well, wasn't it natural, an only son and coming such a surprise—all that's over now. Why, it's a pleasure to see how grandma she loves you."
"I—I'm all right, I tell you."
"Didn't we even fix it you should go in a flat on Waterman Avenue housekeeping for yourself, if you wanted it?"
"Yes, and tie myself down to this dump yet. Not much!"
"Well, I only hope, Sadie Loeb, you never got in your life to live in a worse dump. I know this much, I have tried to do my part. Did I sign over this house to you and Herman for a wedding present, giving only to my own daughter the row of Grand Avenue stores?"