“I hope it will serve you here, Aloysius.”
“Sarve me!” He bent closer. “Meanin' no offense, Miss Fanny; but say, listen: Oncet ye get a Yiddish business education into an Irish head, and there's no limit to the length ye can go. If I ain't a dry-goods king be th' time I'm thirty I hope a packin' case'll fall on me.”
The sight of Aloysius seemed to recall so vividly all that was happy and all that was hateful about Brandeis' Bazaar; all the bravery and pluck, and resourcefulness of the bright-eyed woman he had admiringly called his boss, that Fanny found her self-control slipping. She put out her hand rather blindly to meet his great red paw (a dressy striped cuff seemed to make it all the redder), murmured a word of thanks in return for his fervent good wishes, and fled up the basement stairs.
On Friday night (she was to leave next day) she went to the temple. The evening service began at seven. At half past six Fanny had finished her early supper. She would drop in at Doctor Thalmann's house and walk with him to temple, if he had not already gone.
“Nein, der Herr Rabbi ist noch hier--sure,” the maid said in answer to Fanny's question. The Thalmann's had a German maid--one Minna--who bullied the invalid Mrs. Thalmann, was famous for her cookies with walnuts on the top, and who made life exceedingly difficult for unlinguistic callers.
Rabbi Thalmann was up in his study. Fanny ran lightly up the stairs.
“Who is it, Emil? That Minna! Next Monday her week is up. She goes.”
In the brightly-lighted doorway of his little study appeared Rabbi Thalmann, on one foot a comfortable old romeo, on the other a street shoe. He held out both hands. “Only at supper we talked about you. Isn't that so, Harriet?” He called into the darkened room.
“I came to say good-by. And I thought we might walk to temple together. How's Mrs. Thalmann tonight?”
The little rabbi shook his head darkly, and waved a dismal hand. But that was for Fanny alone. What he said was: “She's really splendid to-day. A little tired, perhaps; but what is that?”
“Emil!” from the darkened bedroom. “How can you say that? But how! What I have suffered to-day, only! Torture! And because I say nothing I'm not sick.”
So Fanny went in to the woman lying, yellow-faced, on the pillows of the dim old-fashioned bedroom with its walnut furniture, and its red plush mantel drape. Mrs. Thalmann held out a hand. Fanny took it in hers, and perched herself on the edge of the bed. She patted the dry, devitalized hand, and pressed it in her own strong, electric grip. Mrs. Thalmann raised her head from the pillow.