And despite herself, Alma, who was not without a young girl's feelings
for nice detail, could thrill to this sartorial svelteness and to the
patent-leather lay of his black hair which caught the light like a
polished floor.
In the lingo of Louis Latz, he was "a rattling good business man,
too." He shared with his father partnership in a manufacturing
business--"Friedlander Clinical Supply Company"--which, since his advent
from high school into the already enormously rich firm, had almost
doubled its volume of business.
The kind of sweetness he found in Alma he could never articulate even to
himself. In some ways she seemed hardly to have the pressure of vitality
to match his, but, on the other hand, just that slower beat to her may
have heightened his sense of prowess.
His greatest delight seemed to lie in her pallid loveliness. "White
honeysuckle," he called her, and the names of all the beautiful white
flowers he knew. And then one night, to the rattle of poker chips from
the remote dining room, he jerked her to him without preamble, kissing
her mouth down tightly against her teeth.
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