"While I'm not in the habit of asking gentlemen their names,
I'd like to inquire if yours happens to be Marks--Gabe I. Marks?"
"Sure," said Gabe. "That's me."
"Miss Bauer's nurse telephones down last week that if a
gentleman named Marks--Gabe I. Marks--drops in and inquires for
Miss Bauer, I'm to tell him that she's changed her mind."
On the way from Spiegel's corset department to the car, Gabe
stopped only for a bunch of violets. Effie's apartment house
reached, he sent up his card, the violets, and a message that the
gentleman was waiting. There came back a reply that sent Gabie up
before the violets were relieved of their first layer of tissue
paper.
Effie was sitting in a deep chair by the window, a flowered
quilt bunched about her shoulders, her feet in gray knitted bedroom
slippers. She looked every minute of her age, and she knew it, and
didn't care. The hand that she held out to Gabe was a limp, white,
fleshless thing that seemed to bear no relation to the plump, firm
member that Gabe had pressed on so many previous occasions.
Gabe stared at this pale wraith in a moment of alarm and
dismay. Then:
"You're looking--great!" he stammered. "Great! Nobody'd
believe you'd been sick a minute. Guess you've just been stalling
for a beauty rest, what?"
Effie smiled a tired little smile, and shook her head slowly.
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