"I am. It ain't my fault. You know I did not care at first."
The implication that he had only himself to blame threw him into a new frenzy. But he restrained himself, and said with ghastly deliberation:—
"Flora, you are not going to marry him."
"I am. I can't live without him," she declared with quiet emphasis.
Asriel left her room.
"It's all gone, Tamara! My candle is blown out," he said, making his way from the dining-room to the kitchen. "There is no Shaya any longer."
"A weeping, a darkness to me! Has an accident—mercy and peace!—befallen the child?"
"Yes, he is 'dead and buried, and gone from the market-place.' Worse than that: a convert Jew is worse than a dead one. It's all gone, Tamara!" he repeated gravely. "I have just seen him eating treife in a Gentile restaurant. America has robbed me of my glory."
"Woe is me!" the housekeeper gasped, clutching at her wig. "Treife! Does he not get enough to eat here?" She then burst out, "Don't I serve him the best food there is in the world? Any king would be glad to get such dinners."