As Issy and his mother reached their front-door, he saw Rosa at the corner of the street, and bolted after her, leaving Golda to enter the house and give an account of her doings. Mendel, for once in a way, was at home. He was at work on a picture for a prize competition at the Detmold, as also were Mitchell and Weldon, so that they were living quietly for the time being. Golda gave a glowing description of the beauties of Margate and of Mrs. Finch and her jewellery. She began to talk of Hetty, but for some reason unknown to herself, with a glance at Mendel she stopped, and went off into a vague, dreamy rhapsody concerning Margate streets.
“The streets are so clean, so nice, and the air is so strong, and the sky is so clear, with the clouds tumbling across it, little clouds like cotton-wool and grey clouds like blankets, almost as it was in Austria, and I was so happy my heart was full of flowers, almost as it was in Austria.”
“What’s the good of talking of Austria?” growled Jacob. “There you had a corner. Here you have a whole house.”
“But I was happy there.”
Issy came in on that and announced that he was going to be married to Rosa. There was half a house vacant in the next street, and he proposed to take it.
“You shall not,” said Jacob. “I will not have that slut in the house. What sort of children will she give you? Squat-browed and bow-legged they will be. How will she look after them? A woman that cannot contain her love for her man will have none for the children. She is a dirty girl, I tell you, and so is her mother and her father’s mother, and her father’s father’s mother.”
“I don’t know who we are, to hold up our heads so high. You are my father, but in some things I cannot obey you. The business is mine . . .”
“It is not. It is mine!” said Jacob. “It is in your name, but it is mine. It is in your name, but your name is my name, and you shall not give it to a woman like that, who goes smelling about street corners like a dog. Her father has no money, and he never goes to the synagogue.”
“I am not marrying her father. I shall go out of the business, then, and I shall start for myself. Rosa will kill herself if I do not marry her, and I must do it.”
“It is true,” said Golda quietly. “I think she will kill herself.”