"Just since I met you I can feel that way, Miss Renie, if you'll excuse me for saying it--just since I met you." "Me?" "For the first time in my life, Miss Renie, I got the feeling from a girl that, for me, life--maybe my life--is just beginning. Like a vine, Miss Renie, you got yourself tangled round my feelings." "Oh, Mr. Hochenheimer!" "Like I told your papa to-night on the car, I 'ain't got much to offer a beautiful young girl like you; money, I can see, don't count for so much with a fine girl like you, and I--I don't need to be told that my face and my ways ain't my fortune." "It's the heart that counts, Mr. Hochenheimer." "If--if you mean that, Miss Renie--if love, just love, can bring happiness, I can make for you a life as beautiful as my rose-garden. For the first time in my life, Miss Renie, I got the feeling I can do that for a woman--and that woman is you. I--Will you--will you be my wife, Miss Renie?" She could feel his breath now, scorching her cheek. "Will you, Miss Renie?" And even as she leaned over to open her lips a figure, swift as a Greek, dashed to the veranda--up the steps three at a bound. "Renie!" "Izzy!" She rose, pushing back her chair, and her hand flew to her breast. "Just a minute. Inside I gotta see you quick, Renie. Howdy, Hochenheimer? You excuse her a minute. I got to see her." His voice was like wine that sings in the pouring. "Yes, yes, Izzy; I'm coming." Hers was trembling and pizzicato. "Excuse me a minute, Mr. Hochenheimer--a minute." Mr. Hochenheimer rose, mopping his brow. "It's all right, Miss Renie. I wait out here on the porch till it pleases you." In her tiny bedroom, with the light turned up, she faced her brother; and he grasped her shoulders so that, through the sheer texture of her dress, his hands left red prints on the flesh. "Renie, you 'ain't done it, have you?" "No, no, Izzy; I've done nothing. Where you been?" He gave a great laugh and sank into a chair, limp. "You don't have to, Renie. It's all right! I've fixed it. Everything is all right!" "What do you mean?" Then, as though the current of his returning vigor could know no bounds, he scooped her in a one-armed embrace that fairly raised her from the floor. "All of a sudden, when you went out, Renie, I remembered Aunt Becky. You remember she was the one who made Uncle Isadore fork over to papa that time about the mortgage?" "Yes, yes." "All of a sudden it came over me that she was the only one who could do anything with him. I ran over to the house--all the way I ran, Renie. She was up in her room, and--and it's all right, Renie. I told her, and she's fixed it--fixed it!" "Oh, Izzy!" "She's fixed it. When he came home to supper we got him right away up in her room before he had his hat off. Like a mother she begged for me, Renie--like a mother. God! I--I tell you I couldn't go through it again; but she got him, Renie--she got him!" "Go on, Izzy--go on!"