It was an indescribable pleasure to
be with her, but my love for her was as dead as were the days
when I lodged in a synagogue. She never alluded to those days. To
listen to her, one would have thought that we had been seeing a
great deal of each other all along, and that small talk was the most
natural kind of conversation for us to carry on
All at once, and quite irrelevantly, she said: "I am awfully glad to
see you again. I did not treat you properly that time--at the
meeting, I mean.
Afterward I was very sorry."
"Were you?" I asked, flippantly.
"I wanted to write you, to ask you to come to see me, but--well,
you know how it is. Tell me something about yourself. At this
minute the twenty-three years seem like twenty-three weeks. But
this is no time to talk about it.
One wants hours, not a minute or two. I know, of course, that you
are a rich man. Are you a happy man? But, no, don't answer now.
The curtain will soon rise. Go back to your box, and come in
again after the next act. Will you?"
She ordered me about as she had done during my stay at her
mother's house, which offended and pleased me at once.
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