“Sorbert, Sorbert!”
The words were said separately, each emphatic in significance. The second was a repetition only of the first. She seemed calling him by his name to conjure back his self again. Her face was a strained and anxious mask.
“What is it, Bertha?”
“I don’t know!”
She dropped his hands, drooped her head to the right and turned away.
She sat down; he sat down opposite her.
“Anything new?” he asked.
“Anything new? Yes!” She gazed at him with an insistent meaning.
He concluded this was just over-emphasis, with nothing behind it; or, rather, everything.
“Well, I have something new as well!”