She heard a voice from the stair landing, Aunt Matilda's voice.
“Sue!” it called—“Sue! Some one to see you!”
The Worm, surely! She sprang up, smoothed her shirt-waist before the mirror, tried to smooth her unmanageable hair. Her color was rising. She waited a moment to control this.
“Sue! Come down!”
She passed her aunt on the stairs and was detained by a worn hand.
“It's a man,” whispered the older woman—“one of those city friends cf yours, I take it. Looks like a Jew. Goodness knows what people will think! As if they didn't have enough to talk about already, without—this!”
Sue shook off her hand and ran down the stairs, oblivious now to her color as to the angry flash in her striking green eyes. It was Zanin, of course—-of all men! What if he had heard! In Greenwich Village there was none of the old vulgar race prejudice. Zarin was in certain respects the ablest man she had ever known. But there was no possibility that he could be understood, even tolerated, in this house on the Street.
She found him on the front porch where Aunt Matilda had left him. And for an instant, before extending her hand, she stared. For there stood the new Zanin—perceptibly fuller in face and figure, less wildly eager of eye, clad in the earthy brown suit that had so impressed the Worm, with a soft gray-green shirt that might have been flannel or silk or a mixture of the two, and a large bow tie and soft hat of a harmonious green-brown.
He smiled easily, thoughtfully down at her as he took her hand. Then she felt him, more sober, more critical, studying her appearance.
“Well, Sue,” he observed—this was indeed a calm, successful-appearing Zanin—“you're not looking so fit as you might.”