The mother and daughter sat there in the growing dusk, amid the plush ottomans, stamped velvet tables, and other Philistine splendours of the large drawing-room, till the lamp-lighter came down the Bayswater Road and the gilt clock on the mantelpiece struck six.
Almost at the same moment the door was flung open and a voice cried:
“Why do women invariably sit in the dark?”
It was a pleasant voice; to a fine ear, unmistakably the voice of a Jew, though the accents of the speaker were free from the cockney twang which marred the speech of the two women.
“Reuben! I thought you were asleep,” cried his mother.
“So I was. Now I have arisen like a giant refreshed.”
A man of middle height and slender build had made his way across the room to the window; his face was indistinct in the darkness as he stooped and put his arm caressingly about the broad, fat shoulder of his mother.
“Dressed for dinner already, Reuben?” was all she said, though the hard eye under the cautious old eyelid grew soft as she spoke.
Her love for this son and her pride in him were the passion of her life.
“Dinner? You are never going to kill the fatted calf twice over? But seriously, I must run down to the club for an hour or two. There may be letters.”