Then he rested his golden head against his father’s coat, and gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction. A few minutes later he was fast asleep.
He was a beautiful boy, and his pink cheeks glowed with health. In spite of the fairness of his hair and complexion, his eyes were dark, and fringed with long lashes of dusky brown. To his parents he was an endless source of pleasure and amusement, and nothing delighted them more than to notice his comical little ways. Montella carried him up to the roof-garden, and gave him over to the nurse. It was his usual hour of sleep.
“I think he has been running about too much,” his mother said, as the maid bore him away. “It is easy to get over-tired in this heat. And you, darling, you look fagged. Can’t you take a little rest?”
He threw himself down in the deck-chair at her side, and having asked permission, prepared to smoke. Patricia applied the match to his cigar, and then leant back with an expression of content.
“It is good to have you with me, Lal,” she said softly. “You have had so little time to spare lately for baby and me.”
He glanced into her clear blue eyes with compunction.
“Never mind, sweet, I will make up for it later on,” he replied cheerfully. “When I get my full staff of assistants I shall not have so much to do. What with Ben Yetzel pulling one way and Engelmacher another, it takes me all my time to steer clear between the two. However, I don’t want to worry you with those affairs; let us throw dull care to the winds.”
“The Chief Rabbi does not like me,” Patricia said thoughtfully. “I felt, all the time he was here, that he disapproved of everything I did. I wonder why?”
“Because he is a confounded idiot,” rejoined her husband, with heat. “If you had been an old Polish woman with a scheitel[[9]] he would have taken you to his heart. It’s jealousy, my dearest, nothing else. He doesn’t like the idea of my having such a sweet and beautiful woman for a wife. I suppose, too, he considers you a sort of heathen because you are not of Jewish birth.”
[9]. Wig.