Israel Hart started round in the chair and bent his brows upon her. She tried saucily to meet his eyes, but hers sank abashed.
“My daughter,” he said, sternly. “Let me never hear you say such a thing again, even in jest. Remember you are a Jewess.”
She stood for a moment or two twitching her fingers, longing to retort. But she did not dare. It was only when she found herself outside his door that she gave vent to the passionate outburst:
“Would to God the accursed race had perished with the other ten tribes!”
She went upstairs to her bedroom with anger and foreboding at her heart, and put on hat and jacket, casting mere mechanical glances at the mirror, for the sake of adjustment. Six months before, her dressing to meet Hugh had been a matter of sweet and import and coquetry. She looked, however, very pretty in her dark-blue costume, with dainty ruffle at her throat when she met him three-quarters of an hour later in Kensington Gardens. He was walking moodily up and down the broad walk, near their appointed meeting place; but when he caught sight of her he quickened his step.
“I am sorry I’m late,” she said, with some petulance; “but when you will make me take these long journeys——”
“It is not my fault, dear,” he said, casually. “I told you I was lunching at Lancaster Gate and was going to put in a call near by before dinner. It was my only hour.”
“Oh, well, never mind. I’m here now. It was papa who kept me. I’ve been discussing matrimony with him.”
“In the abstract, or——”
“Both. It began with the all too concrete Goldberg. Refusing him, I’m to marry an abstract Jew or the curse of Abraham will fall upon me.”