"Well, papa, we must excuse ourselves. When young folks get together they have no time for old ones." "Now, mamma!" protested Birdie. "We're glad if you stay." "I was young once myself," said Mr. Katzenstein; "and I like 'em yet, Gump! Take it from me, I like 'em yet! Mamma here thinks I not got an eye for the nice girls still; but I say what she don't know don't hurt her--eh?" "I should worry!" said Mrs. Katzenstein, regarding her husband with gentle eyes. "Put your hand on my shoulder, papa. All day he makes the hardest work for himself, and then at night comes home with a lame back." "Good night, Gump! Come round and we play pinochle." "I hope you don't think we're stingy with light, Mr. Gump. If I had my way they'd all be going; but Birdie likes only the gas-grate. My Ray was the same way, never a great one for much light." "I'm the same, too," replied Mr. Gump. "Good night!" "Good night!" Birdie remained seated in the mellow flicker of the fire-dance; its glow lit her large, well-featured face intermittently and set the stars in her hair scintillating. The quiet of late evening fell over the room. "What a grand old pair, Birdie!" "Yes," she said, softly--very softly. Silence. "Say--Birdie! Say--" "What?" "I didn't say anything." "Oh!" The red in her face ran down into the square-shape neck of her dress. Silence. "Aw, look what you did, Marcus! You burnt the toe of your shoe!" "Say, Birdie, what I started to say when your mamma and papa come in--er--" "Yes?" "What I started to say was, so long as a fellow's got intentions it's all right for him to call on a girl--er--regular, like this." Her soft breathing answered him. "But--well, I mustn't--I ain't got the right to come round here any more." She looked at him like a startled nymph. "What is it?" "So long as I had intentions it was all right, I say; but--well, now I ain't." "Ain't what?" Her breath came more rapidly between her lips. "I was starting to say before they came in, Birdie--I came here straight from the office to tell you--even maw don't know it yet--_I've lost out!_ Loeb's daughter is engaged, and he's going to put his new son-in-law from Cleveland in the Newark factory." "Marcus!" "Yes! You can't be so sore as I am--a twenty-eight-hundred-dollar job almost in my hand, and then this had to happen! The little raise I get now don't help. I can't ask a girl to marry me on fifteen hundred when I expected twice that much--not a girl like you!" Birdie placed the palm of her hand flat against her cheek; the stars in her eyes had vanished in the light of understanding. "Such a mean trick!" she gasped. "How you've built up their trade for them--and now such a mean trick!" "I was so sure all along, after what Loeb told me last month. Only last week I says to maw I'll ask you this week right after I know for certain. That sure I--was." His voice trailed off at the end. She sat watching the flames, her shoulders slightly stooped and her eyes quiet.