Malka got as red as fire. Moses had sent Solomon round to inform the Mishpocha of his affliction, but at a period when the most casual acquaintance thinks it his duty to call (armed with hard boiled eggs, a pound of sugar, or an ounce of tea) on the mourners condemned to sit on the floor for a week, no representative of the "family" had made an appearance. Moses took it meekly enough, but his mother insisted that such a slight from Zachariah Square would never have been received if he had married another woman, and Esther for once agreed with her grandmother's sentiments if not with her Hibernian expression of them.
But that the child should now dare to twit the head of the family with bad behavior was intolerable to Malka, the more so as she had no defence.
"Thou impudent of face!" she cried sharply. "Dost thou forget whom thou talkest to?"
"No," retorted Esther. "You are my father's cousin—that is why you ought to have come to see him."
"I am not thy father's cousin, God forbid!" cried Malka. "I was thy mother's cousin, God have mercy on her, and I wonder not you drove her into the grave between the lot of you. I am no relative of any of you, thank God, and from this day forwards I wash my hands of the lot of you, you ungrateful pack! Let thy father send you into the streets, with matches, not another thing will I do for thee."
"Ungrateful!" said Esther hotly. "Why, what have you ever done for us? When my poor mother was alive you made her scrub your floors and clean your windows, as if she was an Irishwoman."
"Impudent of face!" cried Malka, almost choking with rage. "What have I done for you? Why—why—I—I—shameless hussy! And this is what Judaism's coming to in England! This is the manners and religion they teach thee at thy school, eh? What have I—? Impudent of face! At this very moment thou holdest one of my shillings in thy hand."
"Take it!" said Esther. And threw the coin passionately to the floor, where it rolled about pleasantly for a terrible minute of human silence. The smoke-wreathed card-players looked up at last.
"Eh? Eh? What's this, my little girl." said Michael genially. "What makes you so naughty?"
A hysterical fit of sobbing was the only reply. In the bitterness of that moment Esther hated the whole world.