He regarded them with dark, quiet eyes, the quick red of embarrassment running high in his face and under his tight-fitting cap of close-nap black hair.
"Ah, excuse me; I might have known. I—I'm too early. Like my mother says, I was in such a hurry to—to get back here again I—I nearly got out and pushed the Subway—I—you must excuse me. I—"
"No, no; sit down, Mr. Teitlebaum. Pearlie ain't feelin' so well this evening; she's all right now, though. Such a cold she's got, ain't you, Poil?"
"Yes—yes. Such a cold I got. Sit—sit down, Max."
He regarded her with the rims of his eyes stretched wide in anxiety.
"Down at supper so well you looked, Pearlie; I says to my mother, like a flower you looked."
A fog of tears rose sheer before her.
"Her papa, Mr. Teitlebaum, he ain't so well, neither. Just now he went to bed, and he—he said to you I should give his excuses."
"So! Ain't that too bad, now!"
"Sit down, Max, there, next to mamma."