Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

8. CHAPTER EIGHT (continued)

The sight of Aloysius seemed to recall so vividly all that was happy and all that was hateful about Brandeis' Bazaar; all the bravery and pluck, and resourcefulness of the bright-eyed woman he had admiringly called his boss, that Fanny found her self-control slipping. She put out her hand rather blindly to meet his great red paw (a dressy striped cuff seemed to make it all the redder), murmured a word of thanks in return for his fervent good wishes, and fled up the basement stairs.

On Friday night (she was to leave next day) she went to the temple. The evening service began at seven. At half past six Fanny had finished her early supper. She would drop in at Doctor Thalmann's house and walk with him to temple, if he had not already gone.

"Nein, der Herr Rabbi ist noch hier--sure," the maid said in answer to Fanny's question. The Thalmann's had a German maid--one Minna--who bullied the invalid Mrs. Thalmann, was famous for her cookies with walnuts on the top, and who made life exceedingly difficult for unlinguistic callers.

Rabbi Thalmann was up in his study. Fanny ran lightly up the stairs.

"Who is it, Emil? That Minna! Next Monday her week is up. She goes."

"It's I, Mrs. Thalmann. Fanny Brandeis."

"Na, Fanny! Now what do you think!"

In the brightly-lighted doorway of his little study appeared Rabbi Thalmann, on one foot a comfortable old romeo, on the other a street shoe. He held out both hands. "Only at supper we talked about you. Isn't that so, Harriet?" He called into the darkened room.

"I came to say good-by. And I thought we might walk to temple together. How's Mrs. Thalmann tonight?"

The little rabbi shook his head darkly, and waved a dismal hand. But that was for Fanny alone. What he said was: "She's really splendid to-day. A little tired, perhaps; but what is that?"