armella was pretending to study her lessons on the kitchen table when the telephone rang. For a week she had been waiting for it. A Peggy Dorr picture was at the Gaiety, and Dixon had promised. But so far he had sent no word.
She started for the instrument. But so, also, did Giuseppe, for the first time challenging her right to answer.
“It’s for me, I bet,” he cried.
“Joe! I’ll answer it,” screamed his sister.
There was a scuffle as he reached the instrument a second ahead, but he held his ground. Still confident that the call must be for her, Carmella waited, until she heard:
“Hello, Pete! Oh, that’s all right. Huh? Naw, nobody killed. Just my kid sister throwing a fit. Oh, she don’t count.”
He turned and grinned wickedly at his sister, and Carmella would gladly have killed him. Here, for the first time, she recognized him as a rival worth reck-
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