Mrs. Cohen smiled. “Who is talking about the latest engagement now?” she said banteringly. “But I have heard about it—Mrs. Friedberg told me the other night. He is a Birmingham young man, isn’t he? I think Lottie is a very lucky girl. I suppose the Rev. Isaac Abrahams managed the affair, as he did Adeline’s?”
“Yes, that is what I think so horrid about it,” replied the girl with disgust. “It was a made-up match. Lottie didn’t know him any more than the man in the moon, until, by arrangement with her father, Mr. Abrahams brought him over from Birmingham to be introduced, and a week later the engagement was announced. I cannot understand how any self-respecting girl can allow herself to be disposed of in that cut-and-dried manner. I couldn’t, I know.”
Mrs. Cohen sighed. She was thinking of her own marriage, which had come under the category they were discussing.
“Before I was engaged,” continued Celia, indignantly, “Mr. Rosen was always offering to find a young man for me. Whenever I met him, no matter how many people were present, he would always say, ‘Hello, Miss Franks, I am on the look-out for a nice chosan[10] for you; one with plenty of money preferred, eh?’ It used to make me so angry. To be honest, Mrs. Cohen, I have not been much impressed with the Jewish society I have met up till now. There seems to be so much money-grubbing, and match-making, and card-playing about it. Can you wonder that I prefer to be with my Christian musical friends? Their company is so much more congenial to me.”
Mrs. Cohen began to look serious, and a little pucker appeared on her usually placid brow.
“You must not judge all Jewish society by the few people you have met,” she said thoughtfully. “There are many Jewish men and women who are cultured and refined in the very highest degree; still I admit that there is some truth in your estimate, unflattering though it seems. But I hope you do not intend to put yourself out of touch with us, Celia. I consider that you, especially, will have your duty to perform to your own people.”
“Why me, especially?” asked the girl, with interest.
“Because, with your voice and your wealth, there is every chance of your attaining a certain amount of fame,” answered her hostess, earnestly. “And I trust that we shall consider you a credit to our race. And don’t you think, Celia, that if such should be the case, and knowing that a certain amount of narrow-minded prejudice always exists against our People, don’t you think that it will be your duty to ever stand up for the race to which you belong, and to say to those Gentiles who admire your talents and your beauty, ‘I, who have won such golden opinions from you all, I am a Jewess, and I glory in it’?”
Her words rang with enthusiasm, yet they awakened only a feeble response in Celia’s heart. The girl’s mind was troubled and perplexed, and she could not endorse a sentiment which was not honestly her own. Her eyes sought the ground, and she remained silent for a moment.
“Are you really proud of being a Jewess?” she asked suddenly, with shy diffidence. “Honestly glad and proud, I mean? I try to be, but somehow I—I can’t!”