Gregorio answered brusquely that the Jew should not touch the boy. “I will not have him made a Jew.”
“I shall take measures, my friend, to force you to pay me. I have not dealt harshly with you. I came here to help you, and you have insulted me and beaten me.”
“Because you are a dog of a Jew, and you have tried to steal my son.”
A nasty look came into the Jew’s eyes,--a cold, cunning look,--and he was about to reply when the door opened and Xantippe entered. She was well dressed, and wore some ornaments of gold. Amos turned toward her, asking the man:
But Gregorio told Xantippe rapidly the history of his adventures with the boy; and the woman, hearing them, moved quietly to the corner where he slept, and took him in her arms.
The Jew smiled. “I see,” he said, “that madam has money. She has taken the advice I gave you the other day. Now I know that you can pay me, and if you do not within two days, Gregorio Livadas, you will repent the insults you have heaped on my head this night.”
He walked quietly to the corner of the room, where Xantippe sat nursing the boy, touched the child gently on the forehead with his lips, and then went out.
For some minutes neither Xantippe nor Gregorio spoke, but the man rubbed the infant’s forehead with his finger as if to wipe out the stain of the Jew’s kiss.
At last the silence, roused only by the strident buzzing of the mosquitos, became unendurable. Gregorio gave a preparatory cough and opened his lips to speak, but the words refused to be born. He was unnerved. The odious visitor, the wearying day, the memory of Xantippe’s face at the window, combined to make him fearful. He watched, under his half-closed lids, his wife crouching on the far side of the boy. Once or twice, as he was rubbing the youngster’s forehead, his fingers touched those of his wife as she waved off the mosquitos; but at each contact with them he shivered and his fears increased. He tried, vainly, to get his thoughts straight, and lit a cigarette with apparent calmness, swaggering to the window; but his legs did not cease to tremble, and the unsteadiness of his gait caused Xantippe to smile as she watched him. Resting by the window, Gregorio widened the lips of the lattice and let in a stream of moonbeams that rested on wife and child, illumining the dark corner.