"Oh, I am well, Mrs. Rabinowich. Thank you." A voice resonant and deep, a voice mellowed by long keeping in the breast of a woman.
"Why don't you come round, some time, Esther? You know, I should always be so glad to see you."
"Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowich."
"You know—we're just next door," the older woman smiled. "You got time, I think. More time than I."
"Oh, she got time all right!" The sharp words flash from the soft mouth of Meyer, who sews and seems in no way one with the sharp words of his mouth. Esther does not look. She takes the words as if like stones they had fallen in her lap. She smiles away. She is still. And Lotte Rabinowich is still, looking at her with a deep wonder, shaking her head, unappeased in her search.
She turns at last to her boy: relieved.
"Come Herbert, now. Now we really got to go."
She takes his hand that he lets limply rise. She pulls him gently.
"Good night, dear ones.—Do come, some time, Esther—yes?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowich."