She could not tell Yetta what came next, so she asked about the family. As Yetta told her meagre store of news, the flood-gates of Rachel's bitter heart opened. She cursed her family. They were to blame for her disaster. Why had not her father made a decent home for his children? Was it her fault that her brother was a crook? If they had been honest and thrifty, they could have given her a marriage portion. Worse than doing nothing for her, they had even eaten up her wages. If she had been an orphan, she could have put some of her pay in the bank—she could have saved enough money to get married on.
"Don't you let them cheat you, Yetta," she broke out, "the way they cheated me. Perhaps I'm a bad woman, but I never cheated little girls the way they cheated us. I never robbed an orphan like they done to you. You're a fool to stand for it. Why should you give them your wages? Haven't they cheated you enough? They made your poor father pay too much board. The funeral never cost like they said it did. And now they're stealing your wages. I tell you what you do. You find some good woman in your shop, who'll take you to board, and put your money in the bank. But don't go to no 'furnished room.' Furnished rooms is Hell! You—"
"Hello, Ray. Introduce me to your friend."
The intruder's voice sent a convulsive shiver through Rachel. He wore a suit of dove-gray, the cuffs and collar of which were bound with silk braid. There was a large diamond in his scarlet tie. As though he did not wish to be outdone by the sun in its premature glory he wore a slightly soiled Panama hat, shaped after the fashion depicted in photographs of the German Crown Prince.
"I say," he insisted, and there was a twang of menace in his soft voice, a more evident threat in his hard domineering eyes, "I say, introduce me to your friend."
"She's my cousin, Yetta Rayefsky," Rachel replied reluctantly.
"And my name," he said with easy assurance, "is Harry Klein. I'm glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Rayefsky. Do you dance as well as your cousin?"
"I've never been to a dance," Yetta stammered.
She was very much flustered by his stare of frank admiration. No man had ever put a "Miss" to her name before. Again the hot blushes chased themselves over her body. But he did not seem to notice her embarrassment.