if Maisie had let him, but she did not want that on her conscience too, and she insisted he continue to see his parents in a normal way.
'Are you sure you don't mind?' he said anxiously.
'I'm sure. Listen, if I felt strongly about it I could go to Manchester and spend Passover with my own parents.' She became thoughtful. 'The fact is that I've never felt part of all that Jewish stuff, not since we left Russia. When we came to England there were no Jews in the town. The people I lived with in the circus had no religion at all, mostly. Even when I married a Jew, your family made me feel unwelcome. I'm fated to be an outsider, and to tell you the truth I don't mind. God never did anything for me.' She smiled. 'Mama says God gave you to me, but that's rubbish: I got you all by myself.'
He was reassured. 'I'll miss you tonight.'
She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over him so that he could nuzzle her breasts. 'I'll miss you too.'
'Mmm.'
After a while they lay side by side, head to tail, and he caressed her between her legs while she kissed and licked and then sucked his penis. He loved to do this in the afternoon, and he cried out softly as he came in her mouth.
She changed her position and nestled in the crook of his arm.
'What does it taste like?' he said sleepily.
She smacked her lips. 'Caviar.'
He giggled and closed his eyes.
She began to stroke herself. Soon he was snoring. When she came he did not stir.
'The men who ran the City of Glasgow Bank should go to jail,' Maisie said shortly before dinner.
'That's a bit hard,' Hugh responded.
The remark struck her as smug. 'Hard?' she said irritably. 'Not as hard as what happened to the workingmen whose money was lost!'
'Still, no one is perfect, not even those workingmen,' Hugh persisted. 'If a carpenter makes a mistake, and a house falls down, should he go to jail?'
'It's not the same!'
'And why not?'
'Because the carpenter is paid thirty shillings a week and obliged to follow a foreman's orders, whereas a banker gets thousands, and justifies it by saying he carries a weight of responsibility.'
'All true. But the banker is human, and has a wife and children to support.'
'You might say the same of murderers, yet we hang them regardless of the fate of their orphaned children.'
'But if a man kills another accidentally, for example by shooting at a rabbit and hitting a man behind a bush, we don't even send him to jail. So why should we jail bankers who lose other people's money?'
'To make other bankers more careful!'
'And by the same logic we might hang the man who shot at the rabbit, to make other shooters more careful.'
'Hugh, you're just being perverse.'
'No, I'm not. Why treat careless bankers more harshly than careless rabbit- shooters?'
'The difference is that careless shots do not throw thousands of working people into destitution every few years, whereas careless bankers do.'
At this point Kingo interjected languidly: 'The directors of the City of Glasgow Bank probably will go to jail, I hear; and the manager too.'
Hugh said: 'So I believe.'
Maisie felt like screaming with frustration. 'Then why have you been contradicting me?'
He grinned. 'To see whether you could justify your attitude.'
Maisie remembered that Hugh had always had the power to do this to her, and she bit her tongue. Her spitfire personality was part of her appeal to the Marlborough Set, one of the reasons they accepted her despite her background; but they would get bored if she let her tantrums go on too long. Her mood changed in a flash. 'Sir, you have insulted me!' she cried theatrically. 'I challenge you to a duel!'
'What weapons do ladies duel with?' Hugh laughed.
'Crochet hooks at dawn!'
They all laughed at that, then a servant came in and announced dinner.
They were always eighteen or twenty around the long table. Maisie loved to see the crisp linen and fine china, the hundreds of candles reflected in the shining glassware, the immaculate black-and- white evening dress of the men and the gorgeous colors and priceless jewelry of the women. There was champagne every night, but it went straight to Maisie's waist, so she allowed herself only a sip or two.
She found herself seated next to Hugh. The duchess normally put her next to Kingo, for Kingo liked pretty women and the duchess was tolerant; but tonight she had apparently decided to vary the formula. No one said grace, for in this set religion was kept for Sundays only. The soup was served and Maisie chatted brightly to the men on either side of her. However, her mind was on her brother. Poor Danny! So clever, so dedicated, such a great leader--and so unlucky. She wondered if he would succeed in his new ambition of becoming a member of Parliament. She hoped so. Papa would be so proud.
Today, unusually, her background had intruded visibly into her new life. It was surprising how little difference it made. Like her, Danny did not appear to belong to any particular class of society. He represented workingmen; his dress was middle class; yet he had the same confident, slightly arrogant manners as Kingo and his friends. They could not easily tell whether he was an upper-class boy who chose martyrdom among the workers or a working-class boy who had risen in life.
Something similar was true of Maisie. Anyone with the least instinct for class differences could tell she was not a born lady. However, she played the part so well, and she was so pretty and charming, that they could not quite bring themselves to believe the persistent rumor that Solly had picked her up in a dance parlor. If there had been any question of her acceptance by London society, it had been answered when the Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria--and future king--had confessed himself 'captivated' by her and sent her a gold cigarette box with a diamond clasp.
As the meal progressed she felt the presence of Hugh by her side more and more. She made an effort to keep the conversation light, and took care to talk at least as much to the man on her other side; but the past seemed to stand at her shoulder, waiting to be acknowledged, like a weary, patient supplicant.
She and Hugh had met three or four times since his return to London, and now they had spent forty-eight hours in the same house, but they had never spoken, of what had happened six years ago. All Hugh knew was that she had disappeared without a trace, only to surface as Mrs. Solomon Greenbourne. Sooner or later she was going to have to give him some explanation. She was afraid that talking about it would bring back all the old feelings, in him as well as her. But it had to be done, and perhaps this was a good time, when Solly was away.
A moment came when several people around them were talking noisily. Maisie decided she should speak now. She turned to Hugh, and suddenly she was overcome with emotion. She began speaking
