"I'll be blest If I do," he said.
"Of course you will," said Addie, laughing merrily.
"Thanks—I'm glad you appreciate my joke. You perhaps fancy it's yours. However, I'm in earnest. I won't be a respectable high-hatted member of the community—not even for your sake, dear. Why, I might as well go back to my ugly real name, Samuel Abrahams, at once."
"So you might, dear," said Addie boldly, and smiled into his eyes to temper her audacity.
"Ah, well, I think it'll be quite enough if you change your name," he said, smiling back.
"It's just as easy for me to change it to Abrahams as to Graham," she said with charming obstinacy.
He contemplated her for some moments in silence, with a whimsical look on his face. Then he looked up at the sky—the brilliant color harmonies were deepening into a more sober magnificence.
"I'll tell you what I will do. Ill join the Asmoneans. There! that's a great concession to your absurd prejudices. But you must make a concession to mine. You know how I hate the Jewish canvassing of engagements. Let us keep ours entirely entre nous a fortnight—so that the gossips shall at least get their material stale, and we shall be hardened. I wonder why you're so conventional," he said again, when she had consented without enthusiasm. "You had the advantage of Esther—of Miss Ansell's society."
"Call her Esther if you like; I don't mind," said Addie.
"I wonder Esther didn't convert you," he went on musingly. "But I suppose you had Raphael on your right hand, as some prayer or other says. And so you really don't know what's become of her?"