Turkletaub, did you have twins?"
"Did I have twins, Nicky, she asks me. She didn't know you were twins.
A red one I had, as red as my black one is black. You see my Nicky how
black and mad-looking he is even when he's glad; well, just so--"
"Now, mother!"
"Just so beautiful and fierce and red was my other beautiful baby. You
didn't know, Ada, that a piece of my heart, the red of my blood, I left
lying out there. Nicky--she didn't know--"
She could be so blanched and so stricken when the saga of her motherhood
came out in her eyes, the pallor of her face jutting out her features
like lonely landmarks on waste land, that her husband and her son had
learned how to dread for her and spare her.
"Now, mother!" said Nicholas, and rose to stand behind her chair,
holding her poor, quavering chin in the cup of his hand. "Come, one
rainy Sunday is enough. Let's not have an indoor as well as an outdoor
storm. Come along. Didn't I hear Miss Ada play the piano one evening
over at Leo's? Up-see-la! Who said you weren't my favorite dancing
partner?" and waltzed her, half dragging back, toward the parlor.
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