Jews -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
“Oh, no,” she answered; “only our old drawing teacher at the Normal
College.” At that he was happy again. She wanted him to lead her
straight to his own picture at once. By and by they had reached it. The
subject was “The Song of Deborah.” The prophetess was represented as a
woman of about fifty years of age, tall, stalwart, imperious-looking,
with iron-gray hair, steel-blue eyes, and a head of stern and majestic
beauty. Christine thought the coloring was superb, and, “Where did you
ever find such a wonderful face?” she asked. “It is a face to make you
afraid, it's so strong, so proud; and yet it is a face that you could
not help loving; there is something so _good_ about it. Oh, I like it
the best of all the pictures here.” Elias felt that he had not worked in
vain.
There was a great crush of people, and the air was close and hot, and
the few seats where one might rest one's self were all occupied; so
presently Elias asked whether she wasn't tired, and she confessed that
she was--a little; and they left the building.
“Now,” said he, “it's still early, and I for one am ravenously hungry.”
“Oh, are you? That's too bad,” was her guileless response. “But at home
I shall be able to give you”--timidly--“some--some cold turkey.”
“No,” he said, “I shan't put you to that trouble. Let's go to a
restaurant.”
And he led her to Delmonico's.
There, the momentous question, what they had better order, occasioned
much grave debate, and resulted finally in the selection of a
sweet-bread garnished by green peas. Elias thought that Beaune would
be the wine best adapted to moistening a sweet-bread, and accordingly
Beaune was brought, as Christine remarked curiously, “in a little
basket.” She applied herself to the edibles with undisguised relish; but
all at once, pausing and looking reproachfully at Elias, she exclaimed,
“Why, you said you were ravenously hungry, and now you're not eating a
thing!” Indeed, she spoke the truth. His knife and fork lay unemployed
beside his plate; and he was doing nothing but gaze at her with fond,
caressing eyes.
“Oh, I forgot,” he said, and began to eat and drink.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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