"I'll tell you what. I'm going home with you. Take me out with you to visit your grandma. I haven't seen her in years--it's been so long ago--everything." He was wringing his hat now and shifting. "It's a long way out, Lilly. It's hardly built up out there at all." "I don't care. I'll buy some pastries on the way and we will make a party of it. Does she still keep boarders?" "Roomers." "Poor, dear Mrs. Schum, fancy her living here!" They rode out on a surface car, changing twice and jammed face to face on a rear platform, a brilliant pink out in her face. "Harry, I just cannot realize it. You a full-fledged man!" "I'm twenty-four." "What is that yellow on your fingers? Not from smoking?" "I used to a lot, but not now." "Is your grandmother just as wrapped up in you as ever, Harry? Poor dear!" "Yes, she is. You sure look fine, Lilly. You're pretty!" "And what in the world brought you to New York and what ever became of Mr. Hazzard and--" "Oh, gramaw read in the paper once that he died of that sore on his face." "And old Willie and Mr. Keebil and Snow Horton--ever see any of them, Harry?" "No; you see it is nearly two years since--" "I have a little daughter--almost five years old!" "Gramaw followed up in the papers when you were married. Flora Kemble and Roy, they're both married, too." "Harry, didn't you ever hear anything about--well, about my marriage?" "Yes, there was something about it. I forget. You live in New York?" "Yes, and, Harry, don't say anything when we get to your home. Just let me walk in and surprise her." "Yes." More and more she noticed his indoor whiteness and the eyelids which would twitch nervously. "Do you keep well, Harry?" "Fairly." There was quite a walk from the car, across a viaduct, down a flight of steps, and into a steep new street of flimsy-looking apartment houses of the dawning era of vertical homes. But the Harlem River, neat as a canal, flowed within easy view and there was something very scoured about the expression of the just graded street of occasional vacant lots, showing the first break in the continuity of city brick that Lilly's tired eyes had encountered. "Why, Harry, I've never been away out here before! How nice and clean!" "Here we are." They entered one of the tan-brick buildings, "El Dorado" writ in elegant gilt script across the transom. Then up three flights of clean, new, fireproof stairs, Harry inserting his key into one of the two doors that faced the landing. "Sh-h-h, Harry! Tell her it is just a friend." Old odors laden with memory rushed to meet her; that pungency which, unaccountably enough, reeks of the cold boiled potato, and which old upholsteries, windowless hallways, and frequent meat stews can generate.