"Give me that money," she cried.
Half hypnotized by the irate swarthy face, Esther made no resistance while Malka rifled her pocket less dexterously than the first operator.
Malka counted it out.
"Seventeen and sixpence," she announced in terrible tones. "How darest thou take all this money from strangers, and perfect strangers? Do my children think to shame me before my own relative?" And throwing the money violently into the plate she took out a gold coin and pressed it into the bewildered child's hand.
"There!" she shouted. "Hold that tight! It is a sovereign. And if ever I catch thee taking money from any one in this house but thy mother's own cousin, I'll wash my hands of thee for ever. Go now! Go on! I can't afford any more, so it's useless waiting. Good-night, and tell thy father I wish him a happy Yontov, and I hope he'll lose no more children."
She hustled the child into the Square and banged the door upon her, and Esther went about her mammoth marketing half-dazed, with an undercurrent of happiness, vaguely apologetic towards her father and his Providence.
Malka stooped down, picked up the clothes-brush from under the side-table, and strode silently and diagonally across the Square.
There was a moment's dread silence. The thunderbolt had fallen. The festival felicity of two households trembled in the balance. Michael muttered impatiently and went out on his wife's track.
"He's an awful fool," said Ephraim. "I should make her pay for her tantrums."
The card party broke up in confusion. David Brandon took his leave and strolled about aimlessly under the stars, his soul blissful with the sense of a good deed that had only superficially miscarried. His feet took him to Hannah's house. All the windows were lit up. His heart began to ache at the thought that his bright, radiant girl was beyond that doorstep he had never crossed.