Part 3

They were off and against the wind, their faces thrust forward and upward. Homeward in the coach they were strangely silent, this time his hat in her lap. At the entrance to her apartment-house he left her with reiterated farewells.

"Then I can come to-morrow night, Miss Miriam?"

"Y-yes." And she stepped into the elevator. He waved through the trellis-work, as she moved upward, brandishing his hat. She answered with a flourish of her bunch of violets.

"Good-by!"

At the threshold her mother met her, querulous and in the midst of adjusting summer covers to furniture.

"How late! I hope, Miriam, right away you had the steamer-trunk sent up. Good berths--good state-rooms you got? What you got in that paper, that aloes root I told you to get against seasickness? Gimme and right away I boil it."

"No, no, don't touch them! They--they're violets. Let me put them in water with wet tissue-paper over them."

* * * * *

To the early clattering of that faithful chariot of daybreak, the milk-wagon, and with the April dawn quivering and flushing over the roofs of houses, Mrs. Binswanger rose from her restless couch and into a black flannelette wrapper.

"Simon, wake up! How a man can sleep like that the day what he starts for Europe!"

To her husband's continued and stentorian evidences of sleep she tiptoed to the adjoining bedroom, slippered feet sloughing as she walked.

"Girls!"

Only their light breathing answered her. Atop the bed-coverlet her younger daughter's hand lay upturned, the fingers curling toward the palm.

"Ray! Miriam!"

Miriam stirred and burrowed deeper into her pillow, her hair darkly spread against the white in a luxury of confusion.

"Girls!"

"What, mamma?"

"Five o'clock, Miriam, and we ain't got the trunks strapped yet, or that seasick medicine from Mrs. Berkovitz."

"For Heaven's sake, mamma, the boat don't sail till three o'clock this afternoon! There's plenty time. Go back to bed awhile, mamma."

"When such a trip I got before me as twelve days on water, I don't lay me in bed until the last minute. Ray, get up and help mamma. In a minute the milkman comes, and I want you should tell him we don't take no more for ten weeks. Get up, Ray, and help mamma see that all the windows is locked tight."

"M-m-m-m."

"Miriam, get up! I want you should throw this quilt from your bed over the brass table in the parlor so it don't get rust. Miriam, didn't you say yourself last night you must get up early? Always only at night my children got mouths about how early they get up."

From the soft mound of her couch Miriam rose to the dawn with the beautiful gesture of tossing backward her black hair. Sleep trembled on her lashes and she yawned frankly with her arms outflung.

"Oh-h-h-h-h dear!"

"I tell you I got more gumption as my daughters. I want, Miriam, you should go down by Berkovitz's for that prescription for your papa."

"Aw, now, mamma, you've got six different kinds of--"

"I tell you when I let your papa get seasick or any kind of sick on this trip, with his going-on about hisself, right away my whole trip is spoilt. Ray, if you don't get up and sew in them cuffs and collars on your coat don't expect as I will do it for you. For my part you can travel just like a rag-bag, Ray!"

"M-m-m-m."

Shivering and with her small ankles pressed together, Miriam peered out into the pale light.

"A grand day, mamma."

"Miriam, I think if I sew all the express checks up in a bag and wear them right here under my waist with the jewelry, they are better as in papa's pockets. With his tobacco-bag, easy as anything he can pull them out and lose them. That's what we need yet, to lose our express checks!"

"Mamma, that's been on your mind for ten days. For goodness' sakes, nobody's going to lose the express checks!"

"What time they call for the trunks, Miriam?"

"For goodness' sakes, mamma, didn't I tell you exactly ten times that's all been attended to! Yesterday Irving went direct to the transfer office with me."

"I ain't so sure of nothing what I don't attend to myself. Ray, get up!"

The sun rose over the roofs of the city, gilding them. At seven o'clock the household was astir, strapping, nailing, folding, and unfolding. Mr. Binswanger stooped with difficulty over his wicker traveling-bag.

"So! Na!"

In the act of adjusting her perky new hat Miriam flung out an intercepting hand. "Oh, papa, you mustn't put in that old flannel house-coat. That's not fit to wear anywhere but at home. And, papa, papa, you just mustn't take along that old black skull-cap; you'll be laughing-stock! Papa, please!"

He flung her off. "In my house and out of my house what I want to wear I wear. If in Naples them Eyetalians don't like what I wear, then--"

"_Italians_, papa; how many times have I told you to say it _Italians_?"

"When they don't like what I wear over there, right away they should lump it."

"Papa, please!"

From the room adjoining Mrs. Binswanger leaned a crumpled coiffure through the frame of the open door: "Simon, I got here that red woolen undershirt. I want you should put it on before we start."

"Na, na, mamma, I--"

"Right away Mrs. Berkovitz says it will keep the salt air away from your rheumatism. That's what I need yet, you should _grex_ from the start with your backache. Ray, take this in to your papa. Fooling with that new camera she stands all morning, when she should help a little. Look, Miriam, you think that in here I got the express checks safe?"

"Yes, mamma."

At ten o'clock, with the last bolt sprung and the last baggage departed, Mrs. Binswanger fell to the task of fitting gold links in her husband's adjustable cuffs, polishing his various pairs of spectacles, inserting various handkerchiefs in adjacent and expeditious pockets of his clothing.

"Simon, I want you should go in and dress now. All your things is laid right out on the bed for you."

"Mamma, you and papa don't need to begin to dress already. None of you need to leave the house until about two, and it's only ten now. Just think, from now until two o'clock you got to get ready in, mamma."

"When I travel I don't take no chances."

Miriam worked eager fingers into her new, dark-blue kid gloves. She was dark and trig in a little belted jacket, a gold quill shimmering at a cocky angle on the new blue-straw hat.

"To be on the safe side, mamma, I'm going right now to meet Irving, so we can sure have lunch and be at the boat by two."

"Not one minute later, Miriam!"

"Not one minute, mamma. Don't forget, Ray, you promised to bring my field-glass for me. Be in the state-room all of you where Irving and I can find you easy. There's always a big crowd at sailing. Don't get excited, mamma. Ray, be sure and fix papa's cuffs so the red flannel don't show. Good-by. Don't get excited, mamma!"

"Miriam, you got on the asafetidy-bag?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Miriam, you don't be one minute later as two--"

"No, mamma."

"Miriam, you--"

"Good-by!"

Over a luncheon that lay cold and unrelished between them Irving Shapiro leaned to Miriam Binswanger, his voice competing with the five-piece orchestra and noonday blather of the Oriental Café.

"I just can't get it in my head, somehow, Miriam, that to-morrow this time you'll be out on the sea."

"Me neither."

"I just never had two weeks fly like these since we got acquainted."

"Me--me neither."

Music like great laughter rose over the slip-up in her voice.

"You going to write to me, Miriam?"

"Yes, Irving."

"Often?"

"Yes, Irving."

"You're not going to forget me over there, are you, when you get to meeting all those counts and big fellows?"

"Oh, Irving!"

"You're not going to clean forget me then, are you, Miriam, and the great times we've had together, and the days in the woods, and the singing, and--"

"Oh, Irving, don't. I--Please--"

She laid her fork across her untouched plate and turned her face from him. Tears rose to choke her, and, tighten her throat against them as she would, one rose to the surface and ricocheted down her cheek.

"Why, Miriam!"

"It's nothing, Irving, only--only let's get out of here. I don't want any lunch, I just don't."

"Miriam, that's the way I feel, too. I--I just can't bear to have you go!"

"You--We can't talk like that, Irving."

"I tell you, Miriam, I just can't bear it!"

"I--I--oh--"

He leaned across the table for her hand, whispering, with an entire flattening of tone, "Miriam, don't go!"

"Irving, don't--talk so--so silly!"

"Miriam, let's--let's you and me stay at home!"

"Irving!"

"Let's, Miriam!"

"Irving, are you crazy?" But her voice yearned toward him.

"Miriam, right at this table I've got an idea. We can do it, Miriam; we can do it if you're game."

"Do what?"

He flashed out his watch. "We've got two hours and twenty minutes before she sails."

"Irving!"

"We have, dear, to--to get a special license and the ring and do the trick."

"Why, I--"

"Two hours and twenty minutes to make it all right for you to stay back with me. Miriam, are you game, dear?"

They regarded each other across the table as if each beheld in the other a vision.

"Irving, you--you must be crazy!"

"I'm not, dear. I was never less crazy. What's the use of us having to get apart after we just got each other? What's all those phony counts and picture-galleries and high-sounding stunts compared to us staying home and hitting it off together, Miriam? Just tell me that, Miriam."

"Irving, I--we just couldn't! Look at mamma and papa and Ray, all down at the boat maybe by now waiting for me, and none of them wanting to go except me. For a whole year I had to beg them for this, Irving. They wouldn't be going now if it wasn't for me. I--Irving, you must be crazy!"

He leaned closer and out of range of the waiter, his voice repressed to a tight whisper.

"None of those things count when a girl and a fellow fall in love like you and me, Miriam."

Even in her crisis her diffidence inclosed her like a sheath. "I never said I--I was in love, did I?"

"But you are! They'll go over there, Miriam, without you and have the time of their lives. We'll stay home and keep the flat open for them so your mother won't have to worry any more about burglars. After the first surprise it won't be a trick at all. We got two hours and fifteen minutes, dearie, and we can do the act and be down at the boat with bells on to tell 'em good-by. Now ain't the time to think about the little things and waste time, Miriam. We got to do it now or off you go hiking, just like--like we had never met, a whole ocean between us, Miriam!"

"Irving, you--you mustn't."

She pushed back from the table. He paid his check with a hand that trembled, resuming, even as he crammed his bill-folder into a rear pocket:

"Be a sport, Miriam! I tell you we got the right to do it because we're in love. We'll just tell them the truth, that at the last minute we--we just couldn't let go. I'll do the talking, Miriam; I'll tell the old folks."

"Ray she--"

"If you ain't afraid to start out on a hundred a month and commissions, dear, we don't need to be scared of nothing. I'll tell them just the plain truth, dear. Just think, if we do it now, when they come back in ten weeks we can be down at the pier to meet them, eh, Miriam, just like an--an old married couple--eh, Miriam--eh, Miriam, dear!"

She rose. A red seepage of blood flooded her face; her bosom rose and fell.

"Are you game, Miriam? Are you, darling--eh, Miriam, eh?"

"Yes, Irving."

* * * * *

Alongside her pier, white as a gull, new painted, new washed, cargoed and stoked, the _Roumania_ reared three red smoke-stacks, and sat proudly with the gang-plank flung out from her mighty hip and her nose tapering toward the blue harbor and the blue billows beyond.

Within the narrow confines of a first-deck stateroom, piled round with luggage and its double-decker berths freshly made up, Mrs. Binswanger applied an anxious eye to the port-hole, straining tiptoe for a wider glimpse of deck.

"I tell you this much, papa, in another five minutes when that child don't come, right away off the boat I get and go home where I belong."

In the act of browsing among the lower contents of his wicker hand-bag Mr. Binswanger raised a perspiring face.

"Na, na, mamma, thirty minutes' time yet she's got to get here. Everybody don't got to come on four hours too soon like us."

"Ja, you should worry about anything, so long as you got right in front of you your newspapers and your tobacco. Right away for his tobacco he has to dig when he sees so worried I am I can't see. Why don't our Ray come back now if she can't find 'em and say she can't find 'em?"

"I tell you, Carrie, if you let me go myself I can find 'em and--"

"Right here you stay with me, Simon Binswanger! We don't get separated no more as we can help. I ain't--Ach, look such a crowd, and no Miriam. I--"

"Na, na, Carrie!"

"So easy-going he is! My daughter should keep me worried like this! To lunch the day what she sails to Europe she has to go! Always she complains that salesmen ain't good enough for her yet, and on the day she sails she has to go to lunch with one. Why, I ask you, Simon, why don't that Ray come back?"

Mr. Binswanger packed his pipe tight and adjusted a small, close-fitting black cap. "To travel with women, I tell you, it ain't no pleasure."

"Ach, du Himmel! Right away off that cap comes, Simon! With my own hands right away out of sight I hide it. Just once I want Miriam should see you in that skull-hat! Right away off you take it, Simon!"

"Ach, Carrie, on my own head I--"

"I tell you already ten times I wish I was back in my flat. I guess you think it's a good feeling I got to lock up my flat for Himmel knows who to break in, and my son Isadore 'way out in Ohio and not even here to--to say to his mother good-by. Already with such a smell on this boat and my feelings I got a homesickness I don't wish on my worst enemy. My boy should be left like this in America all alone!"

"Ach, Carrie, for why--"

Of a sudden Mrs. Binswanger's face fell into soft creases, her eyes closed, and cold tears oozed through, zigzagging downward. "My boy out West with--"

"Na, na, Carrie! Don't you worry our Izzy don't take care of hisself better as you. For what his expense accounts are--always a parlor car he has to have--he can take care of hisself twice better as us, mamma. Mamma, you should feel fine now we got started. I wish, mamma, you could see such a card-room and such a dining-room they got up-stairs--gold chairs like you never seen. We should go up on deck, Carrie, and--"

"Ach, Simon, Simon, why don't that child come! So nearly crazy I never was in my life. And now on top my Ray gone too. In a few minutes the boat sails, and I don't know yet if I got a child on board. I tell you, Simon, when Ray comes back I think it's better we carry off our trunks and--"

"Na, na, mamma, hear out in the hall. I told you so! Didn't I tell you they come? You hear now Miriam's voice. Didn't I tell you, didn't I tell you?"

"Mamma, papa, here we are!"

And in the doorway the hesitant form of erstwhile Miriam Binswanger, her eyes dim as if obscured by a fog of tulle, over one shoulder the flushed face of Mr. Irving Shapiro, and in turn over his the dark, quick features of Ray, flashing their quick expressions.

"I--I found 'em, mamma, just coming on board."

A white flame of anger seemed suddenly to lick dry the two tears that staggered down Mrs. Binswanger's plump cheeks.

"I tell you, Miriam, you got a lots of regards for your parents."

"But, mamma, we--"

"A child what can worry her mother like this! Ten minutes before we sail on board she comes just like nothing had happened. I should think, Mr. Shapiro, that a young man what can hold a responsible position like you, would see as a young girl what he invites out to lunch should have more regards for her parents as you both."

"Mamma, you--But just wait, mamma."

Miriam stepped half resolutely into the room, peeling the glove from off her left hand, and her glance here and there and everywhere with the hither and thither of a wind-blown leaf.

"Mamma, guess what--what we--we got to tell you? Mamma, we--Irving, you--you tell," Her bared hand fell like a quivering wing and she shrank back against his gray tweed coat-sleeve. "Irving, you tell!"

"Miriam, nothing ain't wrong! Izzy, my--"

"No, no, Mrs. Binswanger, nothing is wrong; what Miriam was trying to say was that everything's right, wasn't it, Miriam?"

"Yes, Irving."

Mr. Binswanger threw two hands with the familiar upward gesture. "Come, right away in a few minutes you got to get off, Shapiro. First I take you up and show you the card-room and--"

"'Sh-h-h-h, papa, let Irving--Go on, Irving."

He cleared his throat, inserting two fingers within his tall collar. "You see, Mr. Binswanger, you and Mrs. Binswanger, just at the last minute we--we both seen we couldn't let go!"

"Miriam!"

"Now don't get excited, Mrs. Binswanger, only we--well, we just went and got married, Mrs. Binswanger, when we seen we couldn't let go. From Dr. Cann we just came. A half-hour on pins and needles, you can believe us or not, we had to wait for him, and that's what made us so late. See, on her hand she's got the ring and--"

"See, mamma!"

"And in my pocket I got the special license. We couldn't help it, Mr. Binswanger, we--we just couldn't let go."

"We couldn't, mamma, papa. We thought we ought to stay at home in the flat--you're so worried, mamma, about burglars and nobody in America with Izzy--and--and--Mamma? Papa? Haven't you got nothing to say to your Miriam?"

She extended empty and eloquent arms, a note of pleading rising above the tears in her words.

"Nothing? Mamma? Papa?"

From without came voices; the grinding of chains lifting cargo; a great basso from a smoke-stack; more voices. "All off! All off!" Feet scurrying over wooden decks! "All off! All off!" A second steam-blast that shot up like a rocket.

"Mamma? Ray? Papa? Haven't any of you got anything to say?"

"_Gott in Himmel_!" said Mrs. Binswanger. "_Gott in Himmel_!"

"So!" said Mr. Binswanger, placing a hand with a loud pat on each knee. "So!"

"Oh, papa!"

"A fine come-off! A fine come-off! Eh, mamma? To Europe we go to take our daughter, and just so soon as we go no daughter we 'ain't got to take!"

"_Gott in Himmel! Gott in Himmel_!"

"Ray, haven't you got nothing to say to Irving and me--Ray!"

With a quick, fluid movement the younger sister slid close and her arms wound tight. "Miriam, you--you little darling, you! Miriam! Irving! You darlings!"

Suddenly Mrs. Binswanger inclined, inclosing the two in a wide, moist embrace. "Ach, my Miriam, what have you done! Not a stitch, not even a right wedding! Irving, you bad boy, you, like I--I should ever dream you had thoughts to be our son-in-law. Ach, my children, my children! Simon, I tell you we can be thankful it's a young man what we know is all right. Ach, I--I just don't know--I--just--don't know."

"Papa, you ain't mad at us?"

"What good it does me to be mad? I might just so well be glad as mad. My little Miriam-sha, my little Miriam-sha!" And he fell to blinking as if with gritty eyelids.

"Simon--ach, Simon--you--ach, my husband, you--you ain't crying, you--"

"Go 'way, Carrie, with such nonsense! You women don't know yet the difference between a laff and a cry. Well, Shapiro, you play me a fine trick, eh?"

"It wasn't a trick, Mr. Binswanger--pa, it was--"

"All off! All off!" And a third great blast sounded that set the tumblers rattling in their stands.

"I guess me--me and Irving's got to get off now, mamma--"

Mrs. Binswanger grasped her husband's arm in sudden panic. "Simon, I--I think as we should get off and go home with them. I--"

"Now, now, mamma, don't get excited! No, no, you mustn't! We will keep house fine for you until you come back. See, mamma! I have the key, and everything's fixed. See, mamma! You got to go, mamma. Ray should see Europe before she finds out there--there's just one thing that's better than going to Europe. Please, mamma, don't get excited. I tell you we'll have things fine when you come back. Won't we, Irving, won't we?"

"Ach, nothing in the house, Miriam."

"We got to get off now, Miriam dear, we got to. You can write us about those things, Mrs. Binswanger--mamma. Come, Miriam!"

"Yes, yes, Irving. Now don't cry, mamma, please! When everybody is so happy it's a sin to cry."

"Not a stitch on her wedding-day! All her clothes locked up here on the boat! Let me open the top tray of the trunk, Miriam, and give you your toothbrush and a few waists--Ach, nearly crazy I am! How I built for that girl's wedding when it--"

"Come, mamma, come--"

They were jamming up the crowded stairway and out to the sun-washed deck. Women in gay corsages and bright-colored veils strolled with an air of immediate adjustment. Men already in steamer caps and tweeds leaned against the railings. Travelers were rapidly separating themselves from stay-at-homes. Already the near-side decks were lined with faces, some wet-eyed and some smiling, and all with kerchiefs or small flags ready for adieus.

"All off! All off!"

"Good-by, mamma darling. Don't worry!"

"Irving, you be good to my Miriam. It's just like you got from me a piece of my heart. Be good to my baby, Irving. Be good!"

Ray tugged at her mother's skirts. "'Sh-h-h-h, mamma, the whole boat don't need to know."

"Be good to her, Irving!"

"Like I--just like I could be anything else to her, mamma!"

"Good-by, mamma darling. Don't cry so, I tell you! Let me go, please, mamma, please! Good-by, papa darling, take good care of yourself and--I--just love you, papa! Ray, have a grand time and don't miss none of it. That's right, kiss Irving; he's your brother-in-law now. Don't cry, mamma darling! Good-by! Good-by!"

A tangle of adieus, more handkerchiefing, more tears and laughter, more ear-splitting shrieks of steam and a black plume of smoke that rose in a billow, and hand in hand Miriam and Irving Shapiro joggling down the gang-plank to the pier.

From the bow of the top deck the ship's orchestra let out a blare of music designed to cover tears and heartaches. The gang-plank drew up and in like a tongue, separating land from sea. From every deck faces were peering down into the crowd below.