"That's it; so we--I thought, ma, that is, if you don't mind, instead of Clara here to-night for supper, I--I'd go over to her place. If you don't mind, ma." There was a silence, so light, so slight that it would not have even held the dropping of a pin, but yet had a depth and a quality that set them both to breathing faster. "Why, of course, Sammy, you should go!" "I--we thought for a change." "You should have told me yesterday, Sammy, before I marketed poultry." "I know, ma; I--just didn't. Clara only 'phoned at four." "A few more fried potatoes?" "No more." "Sit up straight, Sam, from out your round shoulders." "You ain't--mad, ma?" "For why, Sammy, should I be mad that you go to Clara for a change to supper. I'm glad if you get a change." "It's not that, ma. It's just that she asked it. You know how a person feels, her taking her Wednesday-night suppers here for more than five years and never once have I--we--set foot in any of her boarding-houses. She imagines she's obligated. You know how Clara is, so independent." "You should go. I hear, too, how Mrs. Schulem sets a good table." "I'll be home by nine, ma--you sure you don't mind?" "I wouldn't mind, Sammy, if it was twelve. Since when is it that a grown-up son has to apologize to his mother if he takes a step without her?" "You can believe me, ma, but I've got so it don't seem like theater or nothing seems like going out without my little sweetheart mamma on one arm and Clara on the other." "It's not right, Sammy, you should spoil me so. Don't think that even if you don't let me talk about it, I don't know in my heart how I'm in yours and Clara's way." "Ma, now just you start that talk and you know what I'll do--I'll get up and leave the table." "Sammy, if only you would let me talk about it!" "You heard what I said." "To think my son should have to wait with his engagement for five years and never once let his mother ask him why it is he waits. It ain't because of to-night I want to talk about it, Sam, but if I thought it was me that had stood between you and Clara all these five years, if--if I thought it was because of me you don't see each other so much here lately, I--" "Ma!" "I couldn't stand it, son. If ever a boy deserved happiness, that boy is you. A boy that scraped his fingers to the bone to marry his sister off well. A boy that took the few dollars left from my notion-store and made such a success in retail men's hats and has given it to his mother like a queen. If I thought I was standing in such a boy's way, who ain't only a grand business man and a grand son and brother, but would make any girl the grandest husband that only his father before him could equal, I couldn't live, Sammy, I couldn't live." "You should know how sick such talk makes me!" "I haven't got hard feelings, Sammy, because Clara don't like it here." "She does."