Jacob stormed on and Issy blustered, until at last he confessed that Rosa had caught him, and that he had to marry her. Jacob threw up his hands and in a shrill voice of icy contempt told Issy exactly what he thought of such marriages; they were nothing but dirt. . . . "Because you have a little dirt on you, must you roll in the mud? You are like dirty dogs, all of you. You, and Harry, and Mendel. I don't know what has come to you in this London. God gave me one woman, and I have asked for nothing else." "You would not let me marry Rosa when I was young." Words and feeling ran so high that Mendel, aghast, fled away to his studio, where the sound of the storm reached him. It raged for hours, and ended in Issy flinging himself out of the house and slamming the door. A week later Rosa was brought to see Golda, and she fawned on her like a dog that has been whipped, sat gazing at her with her stupid brown eyes, and whimpered: "I should have killed myself. Yes, I should have killed myself." "You would not have been so wicked," said Golda. "It is sinful to throw good fish after bad. Can you cook?" "Yes," said Rosa. "I can make cucumber soup. I could do anything for Issy, he is so strong and handsome." And Golda said to Mendel after the interview: "A woman like that is like a steam bath for a man." * * * * * A few days later Issy and Rosa were married, without ceremony, without carriages, or photographs, or guests, or feast. It was a wedding to be ashamed of, but Jacob would not, and Rosa's father could not, lay out a penny on it. The couple took half the house in the next street, and Issy discovered at once that he hated his wife, and was at no pains to conceal it either from her or from his family.