“Ach! You are lucky. There are few that have homes now,” replied the strange woman. “I had a home, once, how long ago. Now, during two months, I have no home.” She was evidently on the verge of tears.
“Mother’s got a touch of the sun,” Blanche said in a low voice, “and we have to pretend we’re going home. You needn’t tell her we’re not.”
“Have no fear,” replied the stranger. “I am all that is most discreet, yes.”
Blanche hardened her heart. This woman took too much for granted. “I don’t see it’s any use your coming with us,” she said.
“Ach! we others, we should cling together,” said the stranger, with a large gesture.
“We’re nobody,” replied Blanche, curtly.
“It iss well to say that. I know. There iss good reason. I, too, must tell the common people that I am a nobody, I call myself, even, Mrs Isaacson. But between us there iss no need to say what iss not true. I can see what you are. Although I am not English, I have lived many years already in England, and I can see. It iss well that we cling together? Yes?”
“Oh!” burst out Blanche. “You’re Mrs Isaacson, are you? I’ve heard of you.”
For one moment Mrs Isaacson’s fine eyes seemed to look inwards in an instantaneous review of her past. “Ach! so! Then we are friends already,” she said cautiously.
“I heard of you from Aunt May,” said Blanche, and the faint air of respect with which she pronounced the name did not escape the notice of the alert Jewess.