"Jew," said Rutherford Hayes, pleasantly, and laconically.
Mrs. Payson stood up. So did the boy. He had no difficulty in rising now. No self-consciousness, no awkwardness. There was about him suddenly a fluid grace, an easy muscular rhythm. "Of course, grandfather has been dead a good many years now," he went on politely, "and father, too."
"I'm afraid Lottie won't be able to go this evening," Mrs. Payson said. "She has been going out too much. It is bad for her school work. Young girls nowadays——"
"I see. I'm sorry." There was nothing of humility in the little bow he made from the waist. Ten minutes earlier you would never have thought him capable of so finished an act as that bow. He walked to the folding doors that led to the hall. On the way his glance fell on the portrait of old Isaac Thrift over the liver-coloured marble mantel. It was a fine portrait. One of Healy's. Adler paused a moment before it. "Is that a good portrait of your father?"
"It is considered very like him."
"It must be. I can see now why my grandfather took his part to the last."
"Took his part!" But her tone was a shade less corroding. "In what, if you please?"
"Grandfather lost his fortune when a firm he trusted proved—well, when a member of it proved untrustworthy."
When he grew older he was always ashamed of having thus taken a mean advantage of a woman. But he was so young at the time; and she had hurt him so deeply. He turned again now, for the door. And there stood Lottie, brave, but not quite brave enough. She was not wearing her white dress—her party dress, for the evening. Her mother had forbidden her to come down. And yet here she was. Braver—not much, but still braver—than Charlotte had been before her.
"I—I can't go, Ford," she faltered.