“I think they’re lovely,” said Hetty, sipping her tea. And she went on chattering vivaciously until Jacob was called away to the workshop, when once again conversation became lifeless and desultory. Golda made one excuse after another to try to get rid of her, but Hetty would not budge. At last there came the sound of Mendel’s key in the door. Golda bustled out of the room and whispered to him:—
“You must not come in. I have visitors and there are letters waiting for you upstairs.”
But Mendel had seen a girl sitting in the kitchen and he wanted to know whether she was pretty or not. She turned and he saw that she was charmingly pretty. He brushed by his mother. He felt at once that he had made a good impression, and, indeed, all Hetty’s dreams and fancies were more than realized, though she was a little affronted and disappointed by the poorness of his clothes.
“It is Hetty Finch,” said Golda, “from Margate.”
Mendel had had Issy’s account of Hetty and he was on his guard at once.
“Yes. I’ve come to live in London,” said she.
“I’ve never lived out of it,” he answered.
“I thought perhaps, as you know so many people, you could help me to find some work. There must be room somewhere in London for poor little me.”
“I’ll see about it,” said Mendel, taking note of her features and figure, and rather upset to find himself so little excited by her. Issy had given him to imagine a dashing, overwhelming woman. He only felt vaguely sorry for Hetty and a desire to stroke her, though he knew her at once for what she was, and how she was drinking in the strongly developed male in him. For the first time he felt cool and detached in the presence of a woman: a deliciously grown-up sensation, and he wanted more of it.
She soon said she must go, and in Golda’s hearing he promised to write to her, but when he took her to the door he asked her to come to his studio, and she said she would come the next day.