"Good-by."
* * *
Hugo and Henry also took their leave to spend an hour at the Café Bauer, where they were to meet several friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Benas and Rita, left alone, went to Mrs. Benas's boudoir.
"It is strange how easily we are carried away when we are among ourselves. Friedheim and Lesser are always ready for a fight. The slightest difference of opinion, and off they go," said Mrs. Benas.
"The curious thing is that at bottom their opinions are not so very different, but argumentation is a racial trait. There's no doubt, we have too much temperament." Mr. Benas smiled, lighting a cigar, and leaning back comfortably in his arm-chair. "I'm curious to know whether Dr. Weilen is such a wrangler as the rest of the Friedländers and the Friedheims," he added, trying to tease his wife.
"I, Joshua? I know others who don't lack the same trait."
"But, Fanny dear, how can you compare us? Generations of practice in the subtle dialectics of the Talmud—that tells. It is not by chance that your family is famous in all intellectual pursuits, while the rest of us, who bear on our escutcheon the rabbit skins and bags of wool carried about by our ancestors, cannot get to be more than mere Geheimer Kommerzienrat."
He liked to refer occasionally to his humble descent from simple merchants; especially when he felt his superiority as a quiet, self-contained man of the world, who could afford to laugh at the irritability and sensitiveness of others. That always put him in a good humor; and Mrs. Benas, well aware of this, fell in with his mood.
"Naturally, Joshua! Geheimer Kommerzienrat, that's nothing! You know you don't believe that. I think we may well be satisfied with one another. Friedländer, Friedheim, and Benas! That's an imposing triple alliance. I think we may be well content."