"What an extraordinary comparison!" he exclaimed. "But where are all the people going? It isn't all over, I hope."
"Why, what do you want to stay for? You're not dancing."
"That is the reason. Unless I dance with you."
"And then you would want to go?" she flashed with mock resentment.
"I see you're too sharp for me," he said lugubriously. "Roughing it among the Boers makes a fellow a bit dull in compliments."
"Dull indeed!" said Hannah, drawing herself up with great seriousness. "I think you're more complimentary than you have a right to be to a married woman."
His face fell. "Oh, I didn't mean anything," he said apologetically.
The poor fellow grew more red and confused than ever. Hannah felt quite sympathetic with him now, so pleased was she at the humiliated condition to which she had brought the young man from the Cape.
"Well, I'll say good-bye," he said awkwardly. "I suppose I mustn't ask to take you down to supper. I dare say your husband will want that privilege."
"I dare say," replied Hannah smiling. "Although husbands do not always appreciate their privileges."
"I shall be glad if yours doesn't," he burst forth.
"Thank you for your good wishes for my domestic happiness," she said severely.
"Oh, why will you misconstrue everything I say?" he pleaded. "You must think me an awful _Schlemihl_, putting my foot into it so often. Anyhow I hope I shall meet you again somewhere."
"The world is very small," she reminded him.
"I wish I knew your husband," he said ruefully.
"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!"
"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 _naïveté_.
"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.
"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."