Reuben laughed, and with an amused expression on his now animated face went on: “He has a seat in Berkeley Street, and a brand new talith, but still he is not happy. He complains that the Jews he meets in society are unsatisfactory; they have no local colour. I said I thought I could promise him a little local colour; I hope to have the pleasure of introducing him to you all.”
They all laughed with the exception of Rose, who said, rather offended: “I don’t know about local colour. We don’t wear turbans.”
Reuben put back his head, laughing a little, and seeking Judith’s eyes for the answering smile he knew he should find there.
She had been keeping rather in the background to-night, quietly but intensely happy.
Reuben was back again! How delightfully familiar was every tone, every inflection of his voice! And how well she knew the changes of his face: the heavy dreaminess, the imperturbable air of Eastern gravity; then lo! the lifting of the mask; the flash and play of kindling features; the fire of speaking eyes; the hundred lights and shades of expression that she could so well interpret.
“What do his people say to it all?” asked Leo.
“Lee-Harrison’s? Oh, I believe they take it very sensibly. They say it’s only Bertie,” answered Reuben, rising and holding out his hand to his uncle, who sauntered in from the card-room.
He was a short, stout, red-haired man, closely resembling his daughter, and at the present moment looked annoyed. The play was high and he had been losing heavily.
“Let’s have some music, Leo,” he said, flinging himself into an arm-chair at some distance from the young people. Rose, who was a skilled musician, went over to the piano, and Leopold took his violin from its case.
Reuben moved closer to Judith, and, under cover of the violin tuning, they exchanged a few words.