A pox of perspiration was out over her face, sparkling forth again after each mopping. A box arrived from a jeweler's and one from a department store. They were a pie knife and a table crumber in the form of a miniature carpet sweeper. The usual futilities with which such occasions can be cluttered and which have shaped the destinies of immemorial women into a tyranny of petty things.
Then Mrs. Becker hurried upstairs, her white wrapper floating after.
In the bathroom her husband leaned to a mirror, his jaw line thrust to the cleave of a razor.
"I really envy you, Ben. Not even your daughter's wedding day can disturb you. For a cent I could cry my eyes out. It's only excitement keeps me going. I—could—c-c-cry."
"Now, now, little woman."
She sat down on a hall chair, regarding him through the open bathroom door.
"Has she said anything to you, Ben, since yesterday? It's made me so upset."
"Now, now, little woman, you must make allowances for a young girl's nervousness."
"I know, Ben, but it worries me so. It's not natural for her to have crying spells like that one yesterday."
"Nonsense! I'm not so sure you weren't a red-eyed bride."