Mandelkern nodded approvingly.
“You are a good David,” he said. “I have confidence in your judgment.”
And the stars that night seemed brighter, particularly his friend Arcturus, who shone with wonderful splendour and filled David’s heart with deep content—and the pulsing joy of living.
When the revelation came to him David felt no shock, experienced no surprise. She had been so constantly in his thoughts, had drifted so quietly into his life, that, when suddenly he realised that she had become a part of his being, it seemed but the natural order of events. It could have been nothing else. He had been born into the world for this. Through all their many talks the name of Mandelkern had never been mentioned. In the beginning the thought of this sweet, girlish nature being doomed to mate itself with grey, blear-eyed Mandelkern had haunted him like a nightmare. But in the sunshine of her presence David quickly forgot both his employer and the scheming Shadchen, and when it dawned upon him that he loved her, that she was necessary to him, that it was in the harmonious plan of the universe that they should be united forever, the thought of Mandelkern came only as a reminder of the unpleasant duty of revealing the truth to him.
Not a word of love had he spoken. Upon a basis of close friendship there had sprung up between them a spirit of camaraderie in which sentiment played no part. Now, suddenly, David felt toward her a tenderness that he had never known before—a desire to protect her, to cherish her—he loved her.
It dawned upon Mandelkern that David’s answers to his questions were becoming more and more vague and unsatisfactory. And one night the Shadchen, becoming alarmed at David’s frequent visits to the girl, urged Mandelkern to make haste.
“It makes me uneasy,” he said, “to see you sitting idle while a young man has so many opportunities of courting your promised bride.”
Mandelkern’s watery eyes narrowed to a slit and his teeth closed tightly together. Then he answered firmly:
“Have no fear. She will be mine. The lad is, young.” And after a moment he repeated, “The lad is young!”