"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Brill anxiously. And under the sunshine of her daughter's approval she confided to her that he had really turned up twice at Lazarus's, beautifully costumed, with diamonds on his fingers and a white flower in his button-hole, but that she had repulsed him as she would repulse a drunken heathen. He had put his arms round her, but she had shaken him off as one shakes off a black beetle. Kitty turned away and stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth. She knew there was a tragic side, but the comic aspect affected her more. "Then you think I was right?" Mrs. Brill wound up. "Of course," Kitty said soothingly. "What do you want of him?" "But don't tell Salvina, or she'd eat my head off." And then, the eager upleaping fountain of her mother's egoistic babblings beginning at last to trickle thinly, Kitty found a breathing-space in which to inform her of the great news that throbbed in her own breast. "Lily Samuelson's dead! Mrs. Rosenstein, you know!" "Oh, my God!" ejaculated Mrs. Brill, trembling like a leaf. Nothing upset her more than to find that persons within her ken could actually die. "Yes, we had a cable from the Cape yesterday." "Hear, O Israel! Let me see--yes, she must have died in child-birth." "She did--the house is all in hysterics. I couldn't stand it any longer. I ordered the carriage and came here." "My poor Kitty! That Lily was too old to have a baby. And now he will marry Mabel." "Oh, no, mother." "Oh, yes, he will. Mabel will jump at him, you'll see." "But it isn't legal--you can't marry your deceased wife's sister." "I know you can't in England--what foolishness! But they'll go to Holland to be married." "Don't be so absurd, mother." "Absurd!" Mrs. Brill glared. "You mark my words. They'll be in Holland before the year's out, like Hyam Emanuel's eldest brother-in-law and the red-haired sister of Samuel, the pawnbroker." "Well, I don't care if they are," said Kitty, yawning. "Don't care! Why, you'll lose your place. They kept you on for Mabel, but now--" Kitty cut her short. "Don't worry, mother. I'll be all right. He's not married Mabel yet." This reminder seemed to come to Mrs. Brill like a revelation, so fast had her imagination worked. She calmed down and Kitty took the opportunity to seek to escape. "Tell Salvina the news," she said. "She'll be specially interested in it. In fact, judging by the last time, she'll be more excited than I am," and she smiled somewhat mysteriously. "Tell her I'm sorry I missed her--I was hoping to find her having a holiday, but apparently I haven't been lucky enough to strike some Jewish fast." But partly because Mrs. Brill was enraptured by her beautiful daughter, partly to keep the pompous equipage outside her door as long as possible, she detained Kitty so unconscionably that Salvina arrived from school. Kitty flew to embrace her as usual, but arrested herself, shocked. "Why, Sally!" she cried. "You look like a ghost! What's the matter?"