Only once had a person penetrated his reserve. Several years before he had made the acquaintance of a scholarly lady who brought to his shop for suitable setting an Egyptian scarab. In the course of filling this simple order Simon had called upon her several times. Subsequent developments, however, had revealed the fact that the scholarly lady had a husband, and the acquaintance had languished; though for some time after the incident he had kept her photograph on his pianola where he had been in the habit of studying it while he had pedalled evenly. This photograph had fallen behind a stationary bookcase, and at present the one brightness in his life was the gleam of the gold and the jewels in his shop.
Now he stood helpless at the corner of the street. Trusting to her unique charm to atone for any discrepancy in her dress, he would have risked Rachel's appearance in one of the more fashionable restaurants. But the others? He shook his head.
More keenly sensitive to observation than a man of wider social experience, he shrank from the attention the group would be likely to attract. Presently he came to a decision. He would take his guests to a restaurant in the vicinity of his house, where he made a practice of dining when the weather was particularly oppressive.
As they quitted the tenement rooms, Nora Gage padded softly out on the landing in her heelless slippers. Her enormous bust undulated more than usual and her hands at her waist disappeared beneath overhanging folds of fat. "Well, I hope you'll have something good to eat," she remarked meaningly. Rachel, her head high, ignored these words; but old David nodded with smiles and gestures toward his pocket.
Like a child he expressed his delight openly. His white locks moved in the air, fine as cobwebs, and his face was wreathed in continual smiles which prolonged the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and deepened the lines about his mouth to quivering crescents of laughter defining the rosy hillocks of his cheeks. With a shaking finger he pointed out the sights in the streets to Emily, who nodded decorously the plumes of her elaborately-trimmed hat. The hat was destined for one of Mrs. Stedenthal's customers, but Emily had borrowed it for the evening. The very novelty of the situation diverted Rachel; she became aware of a dual consciousness--a self that suffered and a self that was vaguely amused.