Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN (continued)

Most incongruously, it was Ella Monahan and Clarence Heyl who waved good-by to her as her ship swung clear of the dock. Ella was in New York on her monthly trip. Heyl had appeared at the hotel as Fanny was adjusting her veil and casting a last rather wild look around the room. Molly Brandeis had been the kind of woman who never misses a train or overlooks a hairpin. Fanny's early training had proved invaluable more than once in the last two years. Nevertheless, she was rather flustered, for her, as the elevator took her down to the main floor. She told herself it was not the contemplation of the voyage itself that thrilled her. It was the fact that here was another step definitely marking her progress. Heyl, looking incredibly limp, was leaning against a gaudy marble pillar, his eyes on the downcoming elevators. Fanny saw him just an instant before he saw her, and in that moment she found herself wondering why this boy (she felt years older than he) should look so fantastically out of place in this great, glittering, feverish hotel lobby. Just a shy, rather swarthy Jewish boy, who wore the right kind of clothes in the wrong manner--then Heyl saw her and came swiftly toward her.

"Hello, Fan!"

"Hello, Clancy!" They had not seen each other in six months.

"Anybody else going down with you?"

"No. Ella Monahan had a last-minute business appointment, but she promised to be at the dock, somehow, before the boat leaves. I'm going to be grand, and taxi all the way."

"I've an open car, waiting."

"But I won't have it! I can't let you do that."

"Oh, yes you can. Don't take it so hard. That's the trouble with you business women. You're killing the gallantry of a nation. Some day one of you will get up and give me a seat in a subway----"