They turned up the stoop of Mrs. Schulem's boarding-house, strictly
first-class. How they flourish in the city, these institutions of the
Not Yet, the Never Was, the Never Will Be, and the Has Been! They are
the half-way houses going up and the mausoleums coming down life's
incline, and he who lingers is lost to the drab destiny of this or that
third-floor-back hearthstone, hot and cold running water, all the
comforts of home. That is why, even as she moved up from the rooming to
the boarding-house and down from the third-floor back to the
second-story front, there was always under Clara Bloom's single bed the
steamer-trunk scarcely unpacked, and in her heart the fear that, after
all, this might not be transiency, but home. That is why, too, she paid
her board by the week and used printed visiting-cards.
And yet, if there exists such a paradox as an aristocracy among
boarding-houses, Mrs. Schulem's was of it. None of the boiled odors lay
on her hallways, which were not papered, but a cream-colored fresco of
better days. There was only one pair of bisques, no folding-bed, and but
the slightest touch of dried grasses in her unpartitioned front parlor.
The slavey who opened the door was black-faced, white-coated, and his
bedraggled skirts were trousers with a line of braid up each seam. Two
more of him were also genii of the basement dining-hall, two low rooms
made into one and entirely bisected by a long-stemmed T of dining-table,
and between the lace-curtained windows a small table for two, with
fairly snowy napkins flowering out of its water-tumblers, and in its
center a small island of pressed-glass vinegar-cruet, bottle of darkly
portentous condiment, glass of sugar, and another of teaspoons.
It was here that Miss Bloom and Mr. Lipkind finally settled themselves,
snugly and sufficiently removed from the T-shaped battalion of eyes and
ears to insure some privacy.
"Well," said Mr. Lipkind, unflowering his napkin, spreading it across
his knees, and exhaling, "this is fine!"
There was an aura of authoritativeness seemed to settle over Miss Bloom.
This to one of the black-faced genii: "Take care of us right to-night,
Johnson, and I'll fix it up with you. See if you can't manage it in the
kitchen to bring us a double portion of those banana fritters I see
they're eating at the big table. Say they're for Miss Bloom. I'll fix it
up with you."
"Now, Clara, don't you go bothering with extras for me. This is
certainly fine. Sorry you never asked me before."
"You know why I never asked you before."
"Why, you never saw the like how pleased ma was. She was the first one
to fall in with the idea of my coming to-night."
She dipped into a shallow plate of amber soup. "I know," she said, "all
about that."
"Ma's a good sport about being left at home alone."
"How do you know? You never tried it until to-night. I'll bet it's the
first time since that night you first met me, five years ago, at Jerome
Fertig's, and it wouldn't have been then if she hadn't had the neuralgia
and it was your own clerk's wedding."
He laid down his spoon, settling back a bit from the table, pulling the
napkin across his knees out into a string.
"I thought we'd gone all over that, Clara."
"Yes; but where did it get us? That's why we're here to-night, Sam--to
get somewheres."