His gaze moved from Arnold's peachy cheek, and falling upon Ruth, surprised her dark eyes resting upon him in anxious questioning. He smiled.
"We shall have to be moving on," she said, holding out a gloved hand.
"Will you be gone long?" he asked, pressing it cordially.
"About a month."
"You will be missed--by the Flynns. Good-by." He raised his hat as he looked at her.
Arnold drew her arm within his, and they walked off.
They say that the first thing a Frenchman learns in studying the English language is the use of that highly expressive outlet of emotion, "Damn."
Arnold was an old-timer, but he had not outgrown the charm of his first linguistic victory; and now as he replaced his hat in reply to Kemp, he distinctly though coolly said, "Damn him."
Ruth looked at him, startled; but the composed, non-committal expression of his face led her to believe that her ears had deceived her.
A few more blocks were passed, and they stopped at a pretentious, many-windowed, Queen Anne house. Ruth ran lightly up the steps, her cousin following her leisurely.
She had scarcely rung the bell when the door was opened by Mrs. Lewis herself.
"Good-evening, Ruth; why, Mr. Arnold doesn't mean to say that he does us the honor?"
Mr. Arnold had said nothing of the kind; but he offered no disclaimer, and giving her rather a loose hand-shake, walked in.
"Come right into the dining-room," she continued. "I suppose you were surprised to find me in the hall; I had just come from putting the children to bed. They were in mischievous spirits and annoyed their father, who wished to be very quiet this evening."
By this time they had reached the room at the end of the hall, the door of which she threw open.
Jewish people, as a rule, use their dining-rooms to sit in, keeping the drawing-rooms for company only. This is always presupposing that they have no extra sitting-room. After all, a dining-room is not a bad place for the family gathering, having a large table as an objective plane for a round game, which also serves as a support for reading matter; while from an economical point of view it preserves the drawing-rooms in reception stiffness and ceremonious newness.
The apartment they entered was large and square, and contained the regulation chairs, table, and silver and crystal loaded sideboard.
Upon the mantel-piece, the unflickering light from a waxen taper burning in a glass of oil lent an unusual air of Sabbath quiet to the room.
"I have 'Yahrzeit' for my mother," explained Jo Lewis, glancing toward the taper after greeting his visitors. He sat down quietly again.
"Do you always burn the light?" asked Arnold.
"Always. A light once a year to a mother's memory is not much to ask of a son."
"How long is it since you lost your mother?" questioned Ruth, gently.
Jo Lewis was a man with whom she had little in common. To her he seemed to have but one idea, --the amassing of wealth. With her more intellectual cravings, the continual striving for this, to the exclusion of all higher aspirations, put him on a plane too narrow for her footing. Unpolished he certainly was, but the rough, exposed grain of his unhewn nature showed many strata of strength and virility. In this gentle mood a tenderness had come into view that drew her to him with a touch of kinship.
"Thirty years," he answered musingly, -- "thirty years. It is a long time, Ruth; but every year when I light the taper it seems as if but yesterday I was a boy crying because my mother had gone away forever." The strong man wiped his eyes.
"The little light casts a long ray," observed Ruth. "Love builds its own lighthouse, and by its gleaming we travel back as at a leap to that which seemed eternally lost."
Jo Lewis sighed. Presently the thoughts that so strongly possessed him found an outlet.
"There was a woman for you!" he cried with glowing eyes. "Why, Arnold, you talk of men being great financiers; I wonder what you would have said to the powers my mother showed. We were poor, but poor to a degree of which you can know nothing. Well, with a large family of small children she struggled on alone and managed to keep us not only alive, but clean and respectable. In our village Sara Lewis was a name that every man and woman honored as if it belonged to a princess. Jennie is a good woman, but life is made easy for her. I often think how grand my mother would feel if she were here, and I were able to give her every comfort. God knows how proud and happy I would have been to say, 'You have struggled enough, Mother; life is going to be a heaven on earth to you now.' Well, well, what is the good of thinking of it? To-morrow I shall go down town and deal with men, not memories; it is more profitable."
"Not always," said Arnold, dryly. The two men drifted into a business discussion that neither Mrs. Lewis nor Ruth cared to follow.
"Are you quite ready?" asked Mrs. Lewis, drawing her chair closer to Ruth's.
"Entirely," she replied; "we start on the 8.30 train in the morning."
"You will be gone a month, will you not?"
"Yes; we wish to get back for the holidays. New Year's falls on the 12th of September, and we must give the house its usual holiday cleaning."
"I have begun already. Somehow I never thought you would mind being away."
