Mimi and Jimmie dutifully made their way to the Crosby home. As their car worked its way up the Avenue through the throngs of Jewish clothing workers that poured from the cross streets south of Madison Square, Jimmie recited, with an airy wave of his hand at the homegoing toilers:
“How odd Of God To choose The Jews.”
He looked at Mimi, expecting the hoped-for smile at his cleverness, but she continued to gaze at the throngs of work-deadened, stoop-shouldered men and women, the chattering groups of younger people dressed in brave but unsuccessful imitations of their sisters who were strolling the same avenue a mile or two northward. She watched the swirling eddies of humans, swept this way and that from curb to building line, rushing to subway kiosk or surface car, going homeward to close-packed apartments to sleep until time to begin another day of work. Mimi did not breathe freely until the car had swept on past the Waldorf and east to Park Avenue. But the sad, weary faces remained with her.
They were not surprised to find that Mrs. Crosby had run true to form when she had written: “We’re having only a few people to meet Wu Hseh-Chuan.” As was her custom, the word “few” meant the same thing as a “crowd” to most people. And Mimi, with a smile at Jimmie, noticed that Mrs. Crosby had shown her usual lack of tact in selecting her guests. It was a heterogeneous assemblage—“she must have written the names of every person she ever met, put them in a hat, and then pulled out the first forty,” was Jimmie’s whispered comment. Mimi saw seven or eight of Mr. Crosby’s business associates whom Mimi had met. There were two