Swaying from
straps in a locked train, which tore like a shriek through a tube whose
sides sweated dampness, they talked in voices trained to compete
with the roar.
"What's the idea, Clara? When you telephoned yesterday I was afraid
maybe it was--Eddie Leonard cutting in on my night again."
"Eddie nothing. Is it a law, Sam, that I have to eat off your mother
every Wednesday night of my life?"
"No--only--you know how it is when you get used to things one way."
"I told you I had something to talk over, didn't I?"
They were rounding a curve now, so that they swayed face to face, nose
to nose.
A few crinkles, frequent with him of late, came out in rays from his
eyes.
"Is it anything you--you couldn't say in front of ma?"
"Yes."
He inserted two fingers into his collar, rearing back his head.
"Anything wrong, Clara?"
"You mean is anything right."
They rode in silence after that, both of them reading in three colors
the border effulgencies of frenzied advertising.
But when they emerged to a quieter up-town night that was already
pointed with a first star, he took her arm as they turned off into a
side-street that was architecturally a barracks to the eye, brownstone
front after brownstone front after brownstone front.
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