I must have looked puzzled, for he narrowed his eyes and studied me, twice starting to speak, and both times stopping himself.
“You must have thought me a selfish brute all this time,” he began. “But I’ve only been biding my time. I must make the most of myself, and now is my only chance—to rise in the world.”
He stopped again, paced the floor several times, placed a chair before me, and said: “Please sit down. I want to talk to you.”
There was a wistful pleading in his voice that none could resist, and for the first time I was aware of the compelling humanness of this arrogant intellectual.
“I’ll tell you everything just as it is,” he started. And then he stopped again. “Ach!” he groaned. “There’s something I would like to talk over with you—but I just can’t. You wouldn’t understand.... A great thing is happening in my life to-night—but I can’t confide it to anyone—none can understand. But—I ask of you just this: will you give Moisheh and my mother a good time? Let the poor devils enjoy themselves for once?”
As I walked out of the office, the bill still crumpled in my hand, I reproached myself for my former harsh condemnation of the doctor. Perhaps all those months, when I had thought him so brutally selfish, he had been building for the future.
But what was this mysterious good fortune that he could not confide to anyone—and that none could understand?
“Doctor Feivel gave me money to take you to the theatre,” I announced as I entered the house.
“Theatre!” chorused Moisheh and his mother, excitedly.
“Yes,” I said. “Feivel seemed so happy to-day, and he wanted you to share his happiness.”