"Aw, now, papa, you quit! What'll Marcus think--such goings-on!"
"How her papa spoils her, Mr. Gump, you won't believe! Not one thing that girl wants she don't get! Last week she meets her papa down-town after the matinee and comes home with a new muff. Yesterday, before he goes down-town, she gets from him a check for some business like a silver-mesh bag, like the girls are wearing. Just seems like she has to have everything she sees!"
"All I got to say, Gump, you should some day have just such a daughter!"
"Papa!"
"Papa!"
"You couldn't wish me better," said Mr. Gump.
Conversation drifted, and after a time Birdie regarded her mother with level eyes; then her lids drooped and slowly raised--as significantly as the red and green eyes that wink and signal in the black path of the midnight flier.
"Well, papa, we must excuse ourselves. When young folks get together they have no time for old ones."
"Now, mamma!" protested Birdie. "We're glad if you stay."
"I was young once myself," said Mr. Katzenstein; "and I like 'em yet, Gump! Take it from me, I like 'em yet! Mamma here thinks I not got an eye for the nice girls still; but I say what she don't know don't hurt her--eh?"
"I should worry!" said Mrs. Katzenstein, regarding her husband with gentle eyes. "Put your hand on my shoulder, papa. All day he makes the hardest work for himself, and then at night comes home with a lame back."
"Good night, Gump! Come round and we play pinochle."
"I hope you don't think we're stingy with light, Mr. Gump. If I had my way they'd all be going; but Birdie likes only the gas-grate. My Ray was the same way, never a great one for much light."
"I'm the same, too," replied Mr. Gump.
"Good night!"
"Good night!"
Birdie remained seated in the mellow flicker of the fire-dance; its glow lit her large, well-featured face intermittently and set the stars in her hair scintillating. The quiet of late evening fell over the room.
"What a grand old pair, Birdie!"
"Yes," she said, softly--very softly.
Silence.
"Say--Birdie! Say--"
"What?"
"I didn't say anything."
"Oh!" The red in her face ran down into the square-shape neck of her dress.
Silence.
"Aw, look what you did, Marcus! You burnt the toe of your shoe!"
"Say, Birdie, what I started to say when your mamma and papa come in--er--"
"Yes?"
"What I started to say was, so long as a fellow's got intentions it's all right for him to call on a girl--er--regular, like this." Her soft breathing answered him. "But--well, I mustn't--I ain't got the right to come round here any more."
She looked at him like a startled nymph.
"What is it?"
"So long as I had intentions it was all right, I say; but--well, now I ain't."
"Ain't what?" Her breath came more rapidly between her lips.
"I was starting to say before they came in, Birdie--I came here straight from the office to tell you--even maw don't know it yet--_I've lost out!_ Loeb's daughter is engaged, and he's going to put his new son-in-law from Cleveland in the Newark factory."
"Marcus!"
"Yes! You can't be so sore as I am--a twenty-eight-hundred-dollar job almost in my hand, and then this had to happen! The little raise I get now don't help. I can't ask a girl to marry me on fifteen hundred when I expected twice that much--not a girl like you!"
Birdie placed the palm of her hand flat against her cheek; the stars in her eyes had vanished in the light of understanding.
"Such a mean trick!" she gasped. "How you've built up their trade for them--and now such a mean trick!"
"I was so sure all along, after what Loeb told me last month. Only last week I says to maw I'll ask you this week right after I know for certain. That sure I--was."
His voice trailed off at the end. She sat watching the flames, her shoulders slightly stooped and her eyes quiet.
"You ain't so sorry as I am, Birdie. Believe me, I could die right now! With you it ain't so bad--you got plenty good chances yet. But if you knew what feelings I got for you! With me there ain't no more Birdies."
She turned her head slowly toward him; her throat throbbing and a delicate pink under her skin.
"I should care, Marcus!" she said, softly.
"What?"
"I should care!" she repeated. "We should live little then, if we can't live big--live little."
"What do you mean, Birdie?"
She regarded and invited him with her eyes, and he stood away from her like a tired traveler trying to shut out the song of the Lorelei!
"Birdie, I ain't got the right! I--I--you been used to so much. With you it ain't like with most girls--your mamma and your papa they--"
Even as he spoke they were somehow in their first embrace, and round their heads came crashing various castles in Spain, and they sat among the ruins and smiled into each other's radiant eyes and whispered, with their warm hands touching:
"I don't deserve such a prize as you, Birdie!"
"Such a scare as you gave me, Marcus! I thought first you meant--you--meant it was me you didn't want."
He refuted the thought with a kiss.
"I ain't good enough for you, Birdie."
"I ain't good enough for you, Marcus."
"You can believe me, Birdie, when he told me to-day it was just like I had died inside."
"It shows it don't pay to work too hard for such people, Marcus--they don't appreciate it."
"I can get the same money as now at Lowen-Felsenthal's; they were after me last year."
"You go, Marcus. You can work up with them; besides, I like the ready-to-wear business better than boys' pants and neckwear."
"I wanted to start out with giving you more than you got already, Birdie."
"Believe me, mamma and papa had no such start as we got. We can afford maybe one of those three-rooms-and-bath apartments in Harlem--Flossie Marks says they're just perfect; and mamma and papa lived right in back of the factory--I remember it myself. Which is worse?"
"That's why I hate it for them, Birdie; your mamma wants you to have the best like she didn't have--I hate it for her."
"You come to-morrow night, and we'll tell them. Just you do like I tell you, and I can fix it."
He placed his hand against her forehead, tilted her head backward and kissed her twice on the lips.
"You're my little Birdie, ain't you--a little birdie like flies in the woods!"
The evening petered out and too soon waned to its finish. They parted with thrice-told good-nights, reluctant to break the weft of their enchantment. She closed the door after him and stood with her back against it; her lips were curved in a perfect smile.
A door creaked, and footsteps padded down the hall.
"Birdie! Birdie!"
"Yes, mamma!" was all she said, going toward her parent and hiding her pink face in the flannel folds of the maternal wrapper.
"God bless you, Birdie! Such happiness I should wish every mother. Go in, baby, and tell papa. For an engagement present you get--like Ray--two hundred dollars."
Mrs. Katzenstein's face was lyric and her voice furry with emotion. She hastened, her night-room slippers slouching off her feet, into the hall and unhooked the telephone receiver.
"Columbus 5-6-2-4," she whispered, standing on her toes to reach the mouthpiece. "Bamberger's apartment. Batta! Hello, Batta! I know you ain't in bed yet, 'cause you got the poker crowd--not? Batta, I got news for you! Guess! Yes; it just happened--such a surprise, you can believe me! Grand! How happy we are you should know! I want they should start in one of those apartments like yours, Batta. Five rooms and a sleep-out porch is enough for a beginning. You can tell who you want--yes; I don't believe in secrets. Batta, who was the woman that embroidered those towels for your Miriam's trousseau? Yes; both of them gone now! Ain't that the way with raising children? But I wish every girl such a young man! Yes, just think, for a firm like Loeb Brothers--manager yet! Batta, come over the first thing in the morning. Now I got trousseau on my mind again, I think I go to the same woman for the table-linen. Good night. She's in talking to her papa--she'll call you to-morrow. Thank you! Good night! Good-by!... Birdie," she called, through the open doorway, "Mrs. Ginsburg's number is Plaza 8-5-7, ain't it? You think it too late to call her?"
"Yes, mamma, and, anyway, if Aunt Batta knows it that's enough--to-morrow everybody has it."
"Yes," said Mrs. Katzenstein, submissively; but after a moment she turned to the telephone again and unhooked the receiver. "Plaza 8-5-7," she said, in muffled tones.
* * * * *
The evening following, Mrs. Katzenstein greeted her prospective son-in-law with three kisses--one for each cheek and the third for the very center of his mouth. She batted at him playfully with her hand.
"You bad boy, you! What you mean by stealing away our baby? Papa, you come right in here and fight with him."
"Mrs. Katzenstein, for you to give me a girl like Birdie, I don't deserve. She's the grandest girl in the world!"
"He asks me for my Birdie," said Mr. Katzenstein, pumping the young man's arm up and down; "but he asks me after it is all settled and everybody but me knows it--even in the factory to-day I hear about it."
Laughter.
"What could we do, papa--wake you up last night?"