We walked over to the street car line, and once on the way she put her arm in mine the way she had always done, but she took it off almost at once. We didn't say anything, not then nor while we were waiting for the trolley. When the car finally came we got a seat near the back and Ruth tried to look out of the window and I read the car ads until we got to my comer.

The landlady had put up some clean curtains for me; except for that, the two rooms were just about the same as they had been when Ruth had been there. She took the newspaper that I hadn't read yet and spread it on the floor in the corner and hung her coat so it would drip on it, and it was all just like it used to be. All but us.

I never have more than one pair of bedroom slippers at a time, but I had some old tennis shoes that I could wear, so I gave the slippers to Ruth and handed her the robe out of the closet. She put it over her arm and touched it with her fingers.

“That was the color I wanted to get you,” she said, “but I never got around to it. Did you buy it?”

I told her yes, but I didn't tell her it was because it was the one she had pointed out to me in the window one day. She lifted the robe to her nose and smelled of it.

“It smells like you,” she said.

“For god's sake, cut out the act and change your clothes,” I said.

I sat down on the chair and pulled off my wet shoes and socks. Ruth picked up my shoes and went to the closet with them. She found the shoe trees she had bought me once.

“They're just where they were when I left,” she said. “I knew that you wouldn't use them if someone didn't make you.”