“The world is very small,” she reminded him.

“I wish I knew your husband,” he said ruefully.

“Why?” said Hannah, innocently.

“Because I could call on him,” he replied, smiling.

“Well, you do know him,” she could not help saying.

“Do I?  Who is it?  I don’t think I do,” he exclaimed.

“Well, considering he introduced you to me!”

“Sam!” cried David startled.

“Yes.”

“But—­” said David, half incredulously, half in surprise.  He certainly had never credited Sam with the wisdom to select or the merit to deserve a wife like this.

“But what?” asked Hannah with charming naivete.

“He said—­I—­I—­at least I think he said—­I—­I—­understood that he introduced me to Miss Solomon, as his intended wife.”

Solomon was the name of Malka’s first husband, and so of Leah.

“Quite right,” said Hannah simply.

“Then—­what—­how?” he stammered.

“She was his intended wife,” explained Hannah as if she were telling the most natural thing in the world.  “Before he married me, you know.”

“I—­I beg your pardon if I seemed to doubt you.  I really thought you were joking.”

“Why, what made you think so?”

“Well,” he blurted out.  “He didn’t mention he was married, and seeing him dancing with her the whole time—­”

“I suppose he thinks he owes her some attention,” said Hannah indifferently.  “By way of compensation probably.  I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he takes her down to supper instead of me.”

“There he is, struggling towards the buffet.  Yes, he has her on his arm.”

“You speak as if she were his phylacteries,” said Hannah, smiling.  “It would be a pity to disturb them.  So, if you like, you can have me on your arm, as you put it.”

The young man’s face lit up with pleasure, the keener that it was unexpected.

“I am very glad to have such phylacteries on my arm, as you put it,” he responded.  “I fancy I should be a good deal froomer if my phylacteries were like that.”

“What, aren’t you frooms?” she said, as they joined the hungry procession in which she noted Bessie Sugarman on the arm of Daniel Hyams.

“No, I’m a regular wrong’un,” he replied.  “As for phylacteries, I almost forget how to lay them.”

“That is bad,” she admitted, though he could not ascertain her own point of view from the tone.

“Well, everybody else is just as bad,” he said cheerfully.  “All the old piety seems to be breaking down.  It’s Purim, but how many of us have been to hear the—­the what do you call it?—­the Megillah read?  There is actually a minister here to-night bare-headed.  And how many of us are going to wash our hands before supper or bensh afterwards, I should like to know.  Why, it’s as much as can be expected if the food’s kosher, and there’s no ham sandwiches on the dishes.  Lord! how my old dad, God rest his soul, would have been horrified by such a party as this!”