“I hate chops,” said Luke moodily. “All right, get me a chop.”
“The lady who stay here, she have a chop too. She also say she hate chops. You have to wait a little time perhaps, because the chef is out Sunday evening. You wait in the drawing-room. It is very nice. Very comfortable. There is a newspaper of last Friday evening.”
Luke submitted and entered the fly-haunted drawing-room. He sat down with his head in his hands. Mabel’s letter had been characteristically unlike her. Her letters were never in the least bit like herself. That was perhaps their only attraction. It was only in the postscript that he seemed actually to hear her speak.
“Poor Nathan Samuel!” he said to himself. “Poor Moses Nathan Modecai Samuel!”
The door opened and Jona came in, clad in a betrayed-heroine tea-gown. She looked beautiful but tragic.
“Jona,” he cried, springing to his feet.
She shrank back, covering her face with her hands.
“Don’t speak to me,” she said. “Don’t come near me. I’m a leper, a pariah, and an outcast.”
“Oh, look here, hang it all, you can’t, you know. That’s mine. If there’s any lepering to be done, I do that. Outcast? How do you mean outcast?”
“Haven’t you heard?” she said.