It had been a long day: in and out of court all the morning; two committee meetings, political and philanthropical, respectively, later on; a hurried club dinner; and an interminable first night, with hitches in the scene-shifting, and long waits between the acts.
He had told himself over and over again that he would “cut” the dance at his uncle’s, and here he was—alleging to himself as an excuse the impossibility of getting to sleep directly after the theatre.
It was little more than a month that he had been home, and already his old enemy, insomnia, showed signs of being on the track.
Reuben made his way to a position near the foot of the stairs, which afforded a good view of the ball-room.
He could not see Judith, a circumstance which irritated him, as he did not wish to go in search of her.
Beyond, in the crowded refreshment room, he had a glimpse of Rose, who was exceedingly friande, giggling behind a large pink ice, while Jack Quixano, a look of conscious waggishness on his face, dropped confidential remarks into her ear. Esther, on the stairs behind him, was delivering herself freely of cheap epigrams to an impecunious partner; and in a rose-lit recess was to be seen Montague Cohen, his pale, pompous, feeble face wreathed in smiles, enjoying himself hugely with a light-hearted matron from the Gentile camp.
The whole scene was familiar enough to Reuben, who from his boyhood upward had taken part in the festivities of his tribe, with their gorgeously gowned and bejewelled women, elaborate floral decorations and costly suppers.
The Jew, it may be remarked in passing, eats and dresses at least two degrees above his Gentile brother in the same rank of life.
The music came to an end, and the dancers streamed out from the ball-room.
Alec Sachs, who had been dancing with his sister, brushed past Reuben in the throng, and the latter was mechanically aware of hearing him say to his partner: