"Not for me, sport," he said, firmly. "I don't go against that make-up of yours for a cent. But I still say you've overdone it. The Reubs haven't dressed like that since '79. I doubt if you could work Brooklyn for a key-winding watch with that layout."

Now Josefina is gone and her father is broken and wordless. She saw him chase her mother into the street that night. He had found her sprawled asleep across the bed, the crimson shoes with their dagger-like heels still on her feet, a lover's note and enough money for a month's rent lying on the floor among the dust. Katerina saw him strike her mother's face with the back of his hand, a scarlet crescent against the white skin.
    
Three weeks later Jakub is sitting at the wooden table in the hallway. He has enough money left to buy food for the evening meal, or to get drunk. He curses his wife and his silent daughter in her tiny room at the top of the house.
     Katerina is standing at the window which looks out over the roofs of the old town. If she leans out and looks to the left, she can see the top of the town hall tower from her window. As she waits, breath drawn in, she hears the astronomical clock striking the hour. She closes her eyes to sees the figure of Death pull the rope he holds in his right hand, while inverting the hourglass he holds in the other. Presently she feels warm dry lips against her cheek and turns to embrace her mother. Her room is empty but for her bed, a wooden chair and the closet in which she hangs her clothes. Josefina's voice curls into her mind like smoke; she is singing Gounod's Ave Maria, shivering the high notes like the topmost leaves of a silver birch.

"Oh, you needn't think I ain't got the money," boasted Haylocks. He drew forth a tightly rolled mass of bills as large as a teacup, and laid it on the table.
     "Got that for my share of grandmother's farm," he announced. "There's $950 in that roll. Thought I'd come to the city and look around for a likely business to go into."
     "Bunco Harry" took up the roll of money and looked at it with almost respect in his smiling eyes.