But this attitude the rabbi retained for scarcely the time it takes to draw a breath. Almost at once he seemed to recover himself. His fingers relaxed. His face regained its ordinary composure. In a low voice, with not a trace of perturbation, coldly, even indifferently:
“A young American lady? Miss Christine—? Be kind enough to repeat the name,” he said.
Elias, continuing to stare hard at the floor, repeated it: “Redwood—Miss Christine Redwood.”
Then, with bowed head and trembling heart, he waited for the outbreak which, he supposed, of course, would come. He stared at the floor—taking vague note of the patch of carpet at his feet, remarking how threadbare it was worn, how faded its colors were, remarking even how, at a certain point, a bent pin stuck upward from it—stared at the floor, and waited. But the rabbi spoke no word. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, ticked, ticked; suddenly, from its interior, sounded a quick whir of machinery, and then a single clear stroke of its bell—half-after midnight. Next instant the clock of St. George's church, across the park, responded with a deep, reverberating boom-Elias waited; and still the rabbi did not speak. Such silence was incomprehensible, exasperating, ominous. All the more violent, for this delay, would the storm be, when it broke, Elias thought. He did not dare to look the rabbi squarely in the face, to meet his eye; but he stole a glance, swift enough to escape arrest, and yet deliberate enough to see that the rabbi was still seated, just as before, in his chair; and then he returned to his contemplation of the carpet. Yes, the silence was exasperating, even unbearable. Why did he not say his say, scold, plead, exhort, curse, empty the phials of his wrath, and have done with it? Elias waited till his over-taxed nerves could endure the suspense no longer; when, teeth gritted, tone defiant, “Redwood,” he repeated for a third time. “Don't you hear?”
The rabbi vouchsafed no syllable in reply; but his lips curled in a slight, enigmatic smile.
Again Elias found himself constrained to wait. He waited till the silence had again grown insupportable. At length, springing to his feet, “For God's sake,” he cried, “why—why don't you speak?”
“Speak?” echoed the rabbi, with the same inscrutable smile, and a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. “What is there to say?”
“Say—say any thing. I don't care what you say,” Elias cried passionately. “Only, this silence—if you want to drive me crazy, keep it up. It makes me feel as if—as if my head would burst open.” He crushed his hands hard against his temples. “Go on. Speak. Curse me. Any thing. Only, don't sit there that way, as though you had been struck dumb.”
“Come, come, Elias! Stop your bellowing. Stop storming about like that. Sit down—there, where you were before. Be quiet. Be rational. Then, if you wish, we can talk.”
Elias dropped into his chair.