Yes, Minnie, like this blustering Moe, had worked herself up in America. She had a rich house, a Rolls-Royce car, a lady servant to wait on her body. But what had happened to her spirit, her soul—the soul that had once been watered and flowered with the love songs of a poet?
“You see, in California nobody worries for bread,” broke in the heavy guttural voice of Moe Mirsky. “People’s only trouble is how to enjoy themselves.”
Excited, high-pitched voices from the hallway, and Minnie and Abe entered. “So much your sister is crazy for you that she tore herself away from the cards to be with you the first night,” said Abe with an inquisitive, quizzical look at the young couple.
“And I was winning at the first shot, too,” Minnie added.
“My wife is the best poker player in the bunch,” Abe asserted. “Wait, you’ll see Friday night when they come around.” And turning back to Moe: “You’ve got to teach her quick the cards so she can join the company.”
“Cards don’t go in her head at all.” Moe looked with unconcealed proprietorship at his future wife. “I guess she ain’t yet used to a little pleasure. Let’s only introduce her to our society, and she’ll soon learn what it is in good time.”
The next few days were spent in a wild orgy of shopping. Not only was Rebecca to be made presentable to the higher society in which generous Abe was anxious she should shine, but Minnie was also preparing herself for a month’s vacation in Cataline Islands with some of Abe’s new real estate friends. As Abe’s wife it was a matter of business that she should be more richly dressed than the wives of his prosperous competitors.
For the first time in her life Rebecca saw things bought, not because they were needed, but because they appealed to her sister’s insatiable eye.
“When will you ever have enough things?” Rebecca remonstrated. “Why are we going from store to store like a couple of drunkards from bar to bar? The more you buy, the more drunk you get to buy more.”
“Just only this one dress. That’s the newest thing in style and so becoming.”