"Of course--if you don't want to know--anything." At that large, brilliant gaze, Mrs. Coblenz leaned forward, quickened. "Why, Selene!" "Well, why--why don't you ask me something?" "Why I--I dunno, honey, did--did you and Lester have a nice ride?" There hung a slight pause, and then a swift moving and crumpling-up of Miss Coblenz on the floor beside her mother's knee. "You know--only, you won't ask." With her hand light upon her daughter's hair, Mrs. Coblenz leaned forward, her bosom rising to faster breathing. "Why--Selene--I why--" "We--we were speeding along and--all of a sudden--out of a clear sky--he--he popped. He wants it in June--so we can make it our honeymoon to his new territory out in Oklahoma. He knew he was going to pop, he said, ever since the first night he saw me at the Y. M. H. A. He says to his uncle Mark, the very next day in the store, he says to him, 'Uncle Mark,' he says, 'I've met _the_ little girl.' He says he thinks more of my little finger than all of his regular crowd of girls in town put together. He wants to live in one of the built-in-bed flats on Wasserman Avenue, like all the swell young marrieds. He's making twenty-six hundred now, mamma, and if he makes good in the new Oklahoma territory, his uncle Mark is--is going to take care of him better. Ain't it like a dream, mamma--your little Selene all of a sudden in with--the somebodys?" Immediately tears were already finding staggering procession down Mrs. Coblenz' face, her hovering arms completely encircling the slight figure at her feet. "My little girl! My little Selene! My all!" "I'll be marrying into one of the best families in town, ma. A girl who marries a nephew of Mark Haas can hold up her head with the best of them. There's not a boy in town with a better future than Lester. Like Lester says, everything his uncle Mark touches turns to gold, and he's already touched Lester. One of the best known men on Washington Avenue for his blood-uncle, and on his poor dead father's side related to the Katz & Harberger Harbergers. Was I right, mamma, when I said if you'd only let me stop school, I'd show you? Was I right, momsie?" "My baby! It's like I can't realize it. So young!" "He took the measure of my finger, mamma, with a piece of string. A diamond, he says, not too flashy, but neat." "We have 'em, and we suffer for 'em, and we lose 'em." "He's going to trade in the flivver for a chummy roadster, and--" "Oh, darling, it's like I can't bear it!" At that, Miss Coblenz sat back on her tall wooden heels, mauve spats crinkling. "Well, you're a merry little future mother-in-law, momsie." "It ain't that, baby. I'm happy that my girl has got herself up in the world with a fine upright boy like Lester; only--you can't understand, babe, till you've got something of your own flesh and blood that belongs to you, that I--I couldn't feel anything except that a piece of my heart was going if--if it was a king you was marrying."