CHAPTER XVI.

Wer nie sein Brod mit Thraenen ass,Wer nie die kummervollen NaechteAuf seinem Bette weinend sass,Der Kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlische Maechte!Goethe.

Therewas a little set of shelves in Judith’s bedroom which contained the whole of her modest library, some twenty books in all—Lorna Doone; Carlyle’sSterling; Macaulay’sEssays;Hypatia;The Life of Palmerston; theLife of Lord Beaconsfield: these were among her favourites, and they had all been given to her by Reuben Sachs.

Like many wholly unliterary people, she preferred the mildly instructive even in herfiction. It was a matter of surprise to her that clever creatures, like Leo and Esther for instance, should pass whole days when the fit was on in the perusal of such works asCometh Up as a Flower, andMolly Bawn.

But it was not novels, even the less frivolous ones, that Judith cared for.

Rose, whose own literary tastes inclined towards the society papers, varied by an occasional French novel, had said of her with some truth, that the drier a book was, the better she liked it. Reuben had long ago discovered Judith’s power of following out a train of thought in her clear, careful way, and had taken pleasure in providing her with historical essays and political lives, and even in leading her through the mazes of modern politics.

Perhaps he did not realize, what it is always hard for the happy, objective male creature to realize, that if he had happenedto be a doctor, Judith might have developed scientific tastes, or if a clergyman, have found nothing so interesting as theological discussion and the history of the Church.

Judith stood before her little library in the dark November dawn, with a candle in her hand, scanning the familiar titles with weary eyes. She was so young and strong, that even in her misery she could sleep the greater part of the night; but these last few days she had taken to waking at dawn, to lying for hours wide-eyed in her little white bed, while the slow day grew.

But to-day it was intolerable, she could bear it no longer, to lie and let the heavy, inarticulate sorrow prey on her.

She would try a book; not a very hopeful remedy in her own opinion, but one which Reuben, Esther, and Leo, who were all troubled by sleeplessness, regarded, she knew, as the best thing under the circumstances.

So she scanned the familiar bookshelves, then turned away; there was nothing there to meet her case.

She put on her dressing-gown and stole out softly across the passage to Leo’s empty room, where she remembered to have seen some books.

Here she set down the candle, and, as she looked round the dim walls, her thoughts went out suddenly to Leo himself, went out to him with a new tenderness, with something that was almost beyond comprehension.

She knew, though she did not use the word to herself, that after some blind, groping fashion of his own, Leo was an idealist—poor Leo!

There were books on a table near, and she took them up one by one: some volumes of Heine, in prose and verse; the operatic score ofParsifal; Donaldson on theGreek Theatre; and then two books of poetry,each of which, had she but known it, appealed strongly to two strongly marked phases of Leo’s mood—Poems and Ballads, and a worn green copy of the poems of Clough.

She turned over the leaves carelessly.

Poetry? Yes, she would try a little poetry. She had always enjoyed reading Tennyson and Shakespeare in the schoolroom. So she put the books under her arm, went back to her room, and crept into her little cold bed.

She took up the volume of Swinburne and began reading it mechanically by the flickering candlelight.

The rolling, copious phrases conveyed little meaning to her, but she liked the music of them. There was something to make a sophisticated onlooker laugh in the sight of this young, pure creature, with her strong, slow-growing passions, her strong, slow-growing intellect, bending over thediffuse, unreserved, unrestrained pages. She came at last to one poem, theTriumph of Time, which seemed to have more meaning than the others, and which arrested her attention, though even this was only comprehensible at intervals. She read on and on:—

“I have given no man of any fruit to eat;I have trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine.Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet,This wild new growth of the corn and vine,This wine and bread without lees or leaven,We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven,Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet,One splendid spirit, your soul and mine.“In the change of years, in the coil of things,In the clamour and rumour of life to be,We, drinking love at the furthest springs,Covered with love as a covering tree,We had grown as gods, as the gods above,Filled from the heart to the lips with love,Held fast in his arms, clothed warm with his wings,O love, my love, had you loved but me!“We had stood as the sure stars stand, and movedAs the moon moves, loving the world; and seenGrief collapse as a thing disproved,Death consume as a thing unclean.Twin halves of a perfect heart, made fastSoul to soul while the years fell past;Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;Had the chance been with us that has not been.”

“In the change of years, in the coil of things,In the clamour and rumour of life to be,We, drinking love at the furthest springs,Covered with love as a covering tree,We had grown as gods, as the gods above,Filled from the heart to the lips with love,Held fast in his arms, clothed warm with his wings,O love, my love, had you loved but me!

“We had stood as the sure stars stand, and movedAs the moon moves, loving the world; and seenGrief collapse as a thing disproved,Death consume as a thing unclean.Twin halves of a perfect heart, made fastSoul to soul while the years fell past;Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;Had the chance been with us that has not been.”

The slow tears gathered in her eyes, and forcing themselves forward fell down her cheeks.

Then there was, after all, something to be said for feelings which had not their basis in material relationships. They were not mere phantasmagoria conjured up by silly people, by sentimental people, by women. Clever men, men of distinction, recognized them, treated them as of paramount importance.

The practical, if not the theoretical, teaching of her life had been to treat as absurd any close or strong feeling which had notits foundations in material interests. There must be no undue giving away of one’s self in friendship, in the pursuit of ideas, in charity, in a public cause. Only gushing fools did that sort of thing, and their folly generally met with its reward.

And this teaching, sensible enough in its way, had been accepted without question by the clannish, exclusive, conservative soul of Judith.

Where your interests lie, there should lie your duties; and where your duties, your feelings. A wholesome doctrine no doubt, if not one that will always meet the far-reaching and complicated needs of a human soul.

And if this doctrine applied to friendship, to philanthropy, to art and politics, in how much greater a degree must it apply to love, to the unspoken, unacknowledged love between a man and woman; a thing in itsvery essence immaterial, and which, in its nature, can have no rights, no duties attached to it?

It was the very hatred of the position into which she had been forced, the very loathing of what was so alien to her whole way of life and mode of thought that was giving Judith courage; if she could not vindicate herself, she must be simply crushed beneath the load of shame.

On one point, the nature and extent of her feeling for Reuben, there could no longer be illusion or self-deception; she would have walked to the stake for him without a murmur, and she knew it.

She knew, too, that Reuben loved her as far as in him lay; knew, with a bitter humiliation, how far short of hers fell his love.

Yet deep in her heart lay the touchingobstinate belief of the woman who loves—that she was necessary to him, that she alone could minister to his needs; that in turning away from her and her large protection, her infinite toleration, he was turning away from the best which life had to offer him.

In the first sharp agony of awakening, Judith, as we know, had recognized that which had grown up between her and Reuben as a reality with rights and claims of its own. And the conviction of this was slowly growing upon her in the intervals of the swinging back of the pendulum, when she judged herself by conventional standards and felt herself withered by her own scorn, the scorn of her world, and the scorn of the man she loved.

A great tear splashing down across theTriumph of Timerecalled her to herself.

She shut the book and sat up in bed,sweeping back the heavy masses of hair from her forehead.

Often and often, with secret contempt and astonishment, had she seen Esther dissolved in tears over her favourite poets.

Should she grow in time to be like Esther, undignified, unreserved? Would people talk about her, pity her, say that she had had unfortunate love affairs?

Oh, yes, they would talk, that was the way of her world; even Rose who was kind, and her own mother who loved her; no doubt they had begun to talk already.

Then, with a sense of unutterable weariness, she fell back on the pillows and slept.

....What help is there?There is no help, for all these things are so.A. C. Swinburne.

“Comeover here, Judith, and I will show you something,” said Ernest Leuniger as he sat by the fire in the morning-room.

It was two days after Reuben’s departure for St. Baldwin’s, and Ernest had returned from the country that morning.

She went over to him, drawing a chair close to his. Judith was always very kind to him, and he admired her immensely, treating her at intervals with a sort of gallantry.

“Now look at me!” He had the solitaireboard on his knee, and a little glass ball, with coloured threads spun into it, between his fingers.

“There, and there, and there!”

Judith bent forward dutifully, watching how he lifted the marbles, one after the other, from their holes.

“Don’t you see?”

He looked at her triumphantly, but a little irritated at her obtuseness.

“Oh, yes,” said Judith vaguely.

“The figure eight—don’t you see?”

He pointed to the balls remaining on the board.

“So it is! Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, smiling gently.

“Ah, that’s telling, isn’t it?” He chuckled slily, swept the balls together with his hand, and announced his intention of going in search of his man, with a view to a game of billiards.

Judith sank back in her chair as the door closed on him. The firelight played about her face, which, though not less beautiful, had grown to look older. She had been living hard these last few days.

The door opened, and Rose came in with her hat on and a parcel in her hand.

“No tea?” she cried, kneeling down on the hearthrug and holding out her hands to the fire.

“It isn’t five o’clock yet.”

There was an air of tension, of expectancy almost about Judith which contrasted markedly with her habitual serenity.

Rose turned suddenly. “When, Judith,when?” she cried with immense archness.

“I don’t know,” said Judith quietly.

There had been a dance the night before at the Kohnthals, where Bertie’s unconcealed devotion to herself had been one of the events of the hour.

“Judith!”—Rose regarded her with excitement—“do you mean to say he has—spoken? Or are you humbugging in that serious way of yours?”

“Mr. Lee-Harrison has not proposed to me, if that is what you want to know.”

Rose unfastened her fur mantle in silence. Something in Judith’s manner puzzled her.

“He really is a nice little person,” Rose went on after a pause; “such beautiful manners!”

“Oh, he hands plates and opens doors very prettily.”

Judith spoke with a certain weary scorn, which Rose accepted as the tone of depreciation natural to a woman who discusses an undeclared admirer.

As a matter of fact, Judith recognized clearly the marks of breeding, the hundredand one fine differences which distinguished Bertie from the people of her set, whose manners were almost invariably tinged with respect of persons—that sure foe to respect of humanity. She recognized them and their value as hallmarks, wondering all the time with a dreary wonder, that any one should attach importance to such things as these.

For in her heart she despised the man. His intelligent fluency, his unfailing, monotonous politeness were a weariness to her.

His very readiness to fall down utterly before her, seemed to her—alas, poor Judith!—in itself a brand of inferiority.

“Tea at last,” cried Rose, as the door opened. “And Adelaide. What a scent you have for tea, Addie.”

Mrs. Montague Cohen swept in past the servant with the tray and took possession of the best chair.

“Mamma is here too,” she cried; “she and aunt Ada will be in in a minute.”

She drew off her gloves and the two girls rose to greet Mrs. Sachs, who at this point came with Mrs. Leuniger into the room.

Judith gave her hand very quietly to Reuben’s mother, then took her seat at some distance from the group round the tea-table, occupying herself with cutting the leaves of a novel that had just arrived from Mudie’s.

“Reuben is nominated,” cried Adelaide, as she helped herself liberally to tea-cake. “We had a telegram this morning.”

“He expects to get inthistime?” said Mrs. Leuniger, her pessimistic mind reverting naturally to her nephew’s first unsuccessful attempt at embarking on a political career.

“It won’t be for want of interest if he doesn’t,” said Mrs. Sachs; “Sir NicholasKemys and his wife are working day and night for him—day and night.”

“And Miss Lee-Harrison, Lady Kemys’ sister,sheseems to be quite specially zealous in the good cause,” put in Adelaide with meaning.

Secretly she was mortified at not having been asked down to St. Baldwin’s for the campaign, Reuben having met her hints on the subject in a very decided manner. There was some satisfaction in venting her feelings on Judith, for whose benefit her last remark was uttered.

“When is the election?” said Rose, turning to her aunt.

“Not till to-day week. But I may safely say there is no real cause for anxiety.”

“Did you see last night’sGlobe?” cried Adelaide, “and theSt. James’s? They cracked up Reuben no end.”

Judith had seen them; she had seenalso thePall Mall Gazette, which expressed itself in very different terms.

She had put backPoems and Balladson its shelf, and had taken to reading all the articles respecting the prospects of the St. Baldwin’s elections that she could lay hands on.

At least she had a right to be interested in what she had been told so much about, but there were times when she felt, as she read, that her interest was intrusive, a thing to be ashamed of.

“I suppose,” said Rose, “that he is too busy to write much.”

“We had a letter yesterday—just a line. He seemed in splendid spirits, and has promised to wire from time to time,” answered Adelaide.

“A good son,” said Mrs. Sachs half tenderly, half jestingly, very proudly, “who never forgets his mother.”

So the talk went on.

Judith sat there listening, cutting open her novel, and throwing in a remark from time to time.

Every word that was uttered seemed a brick in the wall that was building between herself and Reuben.

In this crisis of his career, so long looked forward to, so often discussed, he had no need, no thought of her. Adelaide, Esther, Rose, all had more claim on him than she; she was shut out from his life.

Reuben, disappointed, defeated: in such a one she would always, in spite of himself, have felt her rights. But Reuben, hopeful, successful, surrounded by admiring friends and relatives, fenced in more closely still by his mother’s love: from the contemplation of this glittering figure, cruel, triumphant, she turned away in a stony agony of self-contempt.

There was a sound of carriage wheels outside, and Lionel, who had been reconnoitring in the hall, burst in with the announcement, “Grandpapa has come.”

Mrs. Leuniger received the news with something like agitation. Old Solomon’s visits were few and far between, and now as he came, with pompous uncertainty of step across the room, the whole group by the fireplace rose hastily and went to meet him.

“Reuben is nominated,” cried Adelaide, when the old man had been established in a chair.

“Yes, yes,” said Solomon Sachs, “so I hear.”

He turned to his niece: “He ain’t looking well, that boy of yours.”

Mrs. Sachs shifted uneasily.

“You saw him just before he went, uncle Solomon, when he was tired out and nothimself. He had been running from pillar to post all the week.”

Mrs. Leuniger muttered dejectedly: “He is getting to look like his father.”

Old Solomon raised his square hand to his beard, lifting his eyebrows high above the grave, shrewd, melancholy eyes.

Mrs. Sachs started; a sudden look of terror came into her face; the whites of her little hard eyes grew visible.

“Why don’t he marry?” said Solomon Sachs after a pause; “why don’t he marry that daughter of Cardozo’s? She’s not much to look at, certainly,” he added, and a wave of whimsical amusement broke out suddenly over the large, grave face.

“Yes,” put in Mrs. Leuniger, unusually loquacious, “his wife might see that he didn’t work himself to death.”

“I don’t see how he can work less,” cried Adelaide; “he has his way to make.And making your way, in these days, means pulling a great many strings.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sachs, relieved by this view of the case, “he must get on.”

Judith began to feel that her powers of endurance had their limits. She rose slowly, went over to the fireplace for a moment, threw a casual remark to Rose, and went from the room.

As she made her way up stairs the postman’s knock sounded through the house, and then Lionel came running to her with a letter.

Her correspondence was very small, and she glanced with but faint interest at the little packet in her cousin’s hand.

He was carrying it seal upwards, and suddenly her heart beat with a wild, mad beating, and the colour leapt to her pale cheeks.

She could see that it was sealed with wax. There was only one person that she knewwho fastened his letters so. Reuben invariably made use of the signet ring which had belonged to his father, engraved with a crest duly bought and paid for at the Heralds’ College.

She took the precious thing in her hand, closing her fingers over it, and smiled radiantly at the little boy.

“Thank you, Lionel.”

Her room gained, she locked the door, sat down on the bed, and looked at her letter—

“To Miss Judith Quixano.”

The writing was certainly not Reuben’s, and he never used the “To.”

Then she turned it over and examined the seal, the seal that was totally unfamiliar. She felt a little sick, a little dazed, and leaned her head against the wall.

After a time she opened the letter and read it.

It was from Bertie Lee-Harrison, who asked her to be his wife.

It was a long letter, and stated, amongst other things, that he had already obtained his uncle’s permission to address her.

Old Solomon’s words as to his grandson’s marriage flashed into her mind. It struck her that these plans for Reuben, for herself, were nothing less than an outrage.

It struck her also that she might marry Bertie.

All her courage had deserted her, all her daring of thought and feeling, in the face of a world where thought and feeling were kept apart from word and deed.

She too must fall down and worship at the shrine of the great god Expediency.

For how, otherwise, could she live her life?

Thrust out from Reuben’s friendship, from all that made her happiness; shorn of self-respect, of the respect of her world; how could she bear to go on in the old track?

To her blind misery, her ignorance, Bertie was nothing more than a polite little figure holding open for her a door of escape.

O’ Thursday let it be: o’ Thursday, tell her,She shall be married to this noble earl.Romeo and Juliet.

Thenews of Bertie’s proposal spread like fire in the family.

Rose had a vision of bridesmaids’ gowns and of belted earls at the wedding. Lionel and Sidney, who always knew everything without being told, scented wedding-cake from afar, and indulged in a great deal of chaffsotto voceat their cousin’s expense.

Adelaide was so excited when the news reached her, that she flattened her nose with the handle of her parasol, and exclaimed withher usual directness: “I wonder if the Norwood people will receive her.”

Like every one else, she took for granted that Judith would not be allowed to let slip so brilliant an opportunity.

A little maidenly hesitation, a little genuine reluctance perhaps—for Bertie was not the man to take a girl’s fancy—and Judith would give further proof of her good sense; would open her mouth and shut her eyes and swallow what the Fates had sent her.

Poor Mrs. Quixano, greatly agitated, vibrated between the Walterton Road and Kensington Palace Gardens, expending quite a little fortune on blue omnibuses.

It took a long time for her brother to convince her that Bertie’s spurious Judaism could for a moment be accepted as the real thing.

“He is not a Jew,” she reiterated obstinately; “would you let your own daughter marry him?”

Israel Leuniger evaded the question.

“My dear Golda, he is as much a Jew as you or I. Her father is perfectly satisfied, as well he may be—it is a brilliant match.”

Mrs. Leuniger realized perfectly the meaning of £5000 a year. Bertie’s other advantages, such, for instance, as his connection with the Norwoods, had little weight with her. If he had been one of the Cardozos, or of the Silberheims—the great Jewish bankers—she could have understood all this fuss about his family.

“Who are the girls to marry in these days?” Mrs. Sachs said later on, as she, Mrs. Quixano, and Mrs. Leuniger sat in consultation. “If I had unmarried daughters I should tell them they would have to marry Germans.”

The extreme nature of this statement did not fail to impress her hearers.

While the matrons sat in conclave inthe primrose-coloured drawing-room, Judith up stairs in her own little domain was trying to come to a decision on the subject of their discussion.

She had asked for time, for a few days in which to make up her mind, and of these, three had already gone by. But from the first there had always been this thing in her mind, this thing from which she shrank—that she would marry Bertie.

Her loneliness, her utter isolation of spirit in that crowded house where she was for the moment a centre of interest, a mark for observation, are difficult to realize. A severance of home ties had been to a certain extent involved in her change of homes. Her nearest approach to intimate women friends were Rose and Esther. As for the one friend who had wound his way into her reserved, exclusive soul, who had made a path into her inclosed,restricted life, he was her friend no more.

Reuben, oh, humiliation! had shown her plainly that he was afraid of her; afraid of any claims she might choose to base on the friendship which had existed between them. There was always this thought in her mind goading her.

On the faces round her she read nothing but anxiety that she would make up her mind without delay. She knew what was expected of her.

Sometimes she thought she could have borne it better if some one had said outright:

“We know that you love Reuben; that Reuben loves you after a fashion. But it is no good crying for the moon; take your half loaf and be thankful for it.”

It was this absolute, stony ignoring of all that had gone before which seemed to crush the life out of her.

She was growing to feel that in loving Reuben she had committed a crime too shameful for decent people even to speak of.

That Reuben had ever loved her she now doubted. It had all been a chimera of the emotional female brain, of which Reuben, who was subject, as we know, to occasional lapses of taste, had often confided to her his contempt. Yet even now there were moments when, remembering all that had gone before, it seemed to her impossible that Reuben should do long without her.

If she flew in the face of nature and said “Yes” to Bertie, surely he would come forward and protest against such an outrage.

Every day she devoured the scraps of news which the papers contained respecting the coming election at St. Baldwin’s.

Sometimes her mind dwelt on the splendours of the prospect held out before her; splendours which, in her ignorance, she wasdisposed to exaggerate. Reuben, climbing to those social heights, which for herself she had always deemed inaccessible, Reuben reaching the summit, would find her there before him. That would impress him greatly, she knew.

Let this thought be forgiven her; let it be remembered who was her hero, and how little choice there had been for her in the matter of heroes.

Yet such are the contradictions of our nature, that had the Admirable Crichton stood before her, Don Quixote, or Sir Galahad himself, I cannot answer for Judith that she would not have turned from them to the mixed, imperfect human creature—Reuben Sachs.

So she sat there swaying this way and that, and then the door opened and her mother came in. Mrs. Quixano, we know, was not pleased at heart, but she had become very anxious for the marriage.

Judith listened passively as the advantages of her future position were laid before her.

Then she made her protest, fully conscious of its weakness.

“I do not like Mr. Lee-Harrison.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Quixano. “I should be sorry to hear that you did. No girl likes her intended—at first.”

Judith bowed her head, conscious, ashamed.

Only that afternoon Rose had said to her:

“We all have to marry the men we don’t care for. I shall, I know, although I have a lot of money. I am not sure that it is not best in the end.”

And she sighed, as a red-headed, cousinly vision rose before her mental sight.

“You are coming home with me,” went on Mrs. Quixano, “then we can talk it over comfortably. You mustn’t keep the poor man waiting much longer.”

Mrs. Leuniger came in as Judith was tying her bonnet strings.

“Judith is coming with me,” said her mother.

Aunt Ada drifted slowly across the room to where Judith was standing. She looked at her with her miserable eyes, rubbing her hands together as she said:

“You had better write to Mr. Lee-Harrison before you go. You won’t get such an opportunity as this every day.”

Judith stared at her aunt in a sort of desperation.

She, too? Aunt Ada, who all the days of her life had known wealth, splendour, importance, and, as far as could be seen, had never enjoyed an hour’s happiness!

She looked at the dejected, untidy figure, with the load of diamonds on the fingers, the rich lace round neck and wrists, the crumpled gown of costly silk.

Aunt Ada still believed in these things then; in diamonds, lace and silk? Did not wring her hands and cry, “all is vanity!”

Hers was truly an astonishing manifestation of faith.

. . . .

Judith sat in her father’s study in the Walterton Road.

On the desk before her lay the letter which she had written and sealed to Mr. Lee-Harrison, containing her acceptance of his offer.

A certain relief had come with the deed. She had opened up for herself a new field of action; she would be reinstated in the eyes of her world, in Reuben’s eyes, in her own.

She was so strong, so cruelly vital that it never for an instant occurred to her that she might pine and fade under her misery.She would have laughed to scorn such a thought.

Not thus could she hope for escape. A new field of action—there lay her best chance.

Her father came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She lifted her mournful glance to his; the kind, vague regard was inexpressibly soothing after the battery of eyes to which she had been recently exposed.

“I hope, my dear,” said Joshua Quixano, “that you are quite happy in this engagement?”

“Oh, yes, papa,” answered Judith; but suddenly, as she spoke, the tears welled to her eyes and poured down her face.

Such a display of feeling on her part was without precedent. Both father and daughter were exceedingly shy, though in neither case with that shyness which manifests itself in outward physical flutter.

Mr. Quixano, deeply moved, stretched out his arms, and putting them about her, drew her close against him.

“My dear girl, my dear girl, you are not to do this unless you are sure it is for your happiness. Remember, there is always a home for you here. You can always come back to us.”

She let her face lie on his breast, while the tears flowed unchecked. His words, the kind, timid, caressing movements with which he accompanied them were sweet to her, though in the depths of her heart she knew that there was no turning back.

Material advantage; things that you could touch and see and talk about; that these were the only things which really mattered, had been the unspoken gospel of her life.

Now and then you allowed yourself the luxury of a fine sentiment in speech, but when it came to the point, to take the bestthat you could get for yourself was the only course open to a person of sense.

The push, the struggle, the hunger and greed of her world rose vividly before her. Wealth, power, success—a flaunting success for all men to see; had she not believed in these things as the most desirable on earth? Had she not always wished them to fall to the lot of the person dearest to her? Did she not believe in them still? Was she not doing her best to secure them for herself?

But she was Joshua Quixano’s daughter—was it possible that she cared for none of these things?

The essence of love is kindness; and indeed it maybe best defined as passionate kindness.R. L Stevenson.

Thereis nothing more dear to the Jewish heart than an engagement; and when, four days after the events of the last chapter, that between Judith and Bertie was made public, congratulations flowed in, people called at all hours of the day, and the house in Kensington Palace Gardens presented a scene of cheerful activity and excitement.

The Community, after much discussion, much shaking of heads over the degeneracy of the times, had decided on acceptingBertie’s veneer of Judaism as the real thing, and the engagement was treated like any other. If Mr. Lee-Harrison had continued in the faith of his fathers this would not have been the case. Though both engagement and marriage would in a great number of instances have been countenanced, their recognition would have been less formal and public, and of course a fair proportion of Jews would never have recognized them at all.

As it was, the brilliancy of the match was considered a little dimmed by the fact of Bertie’s not being of the Semitic race. It showed indifferent sportsmanship, if nothing else, to have failed in bringing down one of the wily sons of Shem.

The Samuel Sachses came over at the first opportunity towish joy, as they themselves expressed it, and inspect the newfiancé.

It is possible that they were not well received, for Netta gave out subsequently, whenever the Lee-Harrisons were in question: “We don’t visit. Mamma doesn’t approve of mixed marriages.”

The day on which the engagement was announced happened also to be that of the election, and in the course of the afternoon Adelaide burst in, much excited by the double event.

“An overwhelming majority!” she cried; “Reuben is in by an overwhelming majority.”

Then going up to Judith, she gave her a sounding kiss.

“I am so glad, dear,” she said gushingly.

Judith submitted to this display of affection with a good grace.

For the last four days she had been living in a dream; a dream peopled by phantoms, who went and came, spoke andsmiled, but had about as much reality as the figures of a magic lantern.

As before Bertie’s proposal she had been too much preoccupied to be much aware of him, so now she continued to accept his attentions in the same spirit of amiable indifference and unconsciousness. Bertie, as Gwendolen Harleth said of Grandcourt, was not disgusting. He took his love, as he took his religion, very theoretically. There was something not unpleasant in the atmosphere of respectful devotion with which he contrived to surround her.

“Where is your young man?” went on Adelaide, taking a seat close to Judith, and noting with admiration the rich colour in her face, the wonderful brilliance of her eyes.

She felt very friendly towards the girl, who was safely out of her brother’s way, and was doing so remarkably well for herself.

Afterwards she observed to her husband: “Judith looked quite good-looking. I always say there is nothing like being engaged for improving a girl’s complexion.”

“Am I my young man’s keeper?” answered Judith lightly. “But I believe he is at Christie’s.”

“When can you come and dine with us?” went on Adelaide, who had never asked Judith to dinner before. “I will get some pleasant people to meet you. You shall choose your own night. Reuben must come as well—if he is not too jealous.”

Adelaide did not mean to be cruel. She honestly believed that before the solid reality of an engagement, such vapour as unspoken, unacknowledged feeling must at once have melted.

And Judith was beyond being hurt by her words.

“I don’t know exactly when we can come. Blanche Kemys wants us to go down there for a day or two next week. And we are half promised to Geraldine Sydenham for the week after.”

She pronounced these distinguished names thus familiarly with a secret amusement, a sense that there was really a great deal of fun to be got out of Adelaide.

Mrs. Cohen stared open-mouthed, frankly impressed.

She had no idea that Bertie’s people would come round without any difficulty in that way, and visions of herself and Monty honoured guests at Norwood Towers began to dance before her mental vision.

Esther, noting the little comedy, smiled to herself. She had perhaps a clearer view of Judith’s state of mind than any one else.

Judith indeed had almost succeeded in banishing thought during the last few days.

The persistent questions: “What will Reuben think?” “When will he know?” were the nearest approach to thought she had allowed herself.

Rose, who was thoroughly enjoying the engagement, and had confided to Judith that, once married, “she would be all right” came in at this point, and in her turn was made acquainted with the results of the election.

“Reuben comes back to-night by the last train, the 12.15,” added Mrs. Cohen.

Judith thought: “He knows now.”

Lady Kemys would certainly have told him what that morning had been a public fact.

People streamed in and out all the afternoon, greatly disappointed at not finding Bertie.

At six Judith, at the instigation of Rose, went to dress for dinner. Bertie had announced his intention of coming early.

As she shut the drawing-room door behind her, the muscles of her face relaxed, she stood a moment at the foot of the stairs like a figure of stone.

Mrs. Sachs, emerging from Mr. Leuniger’s private room, where she had been imparting the news of her son’s triumph, came upon her thus.

“My dear!” she cried, going up to her.

Judith roused herself at once, and held out her hand with the comedy-smile which she had learned to wear these last few days.

Mrs. Sachs looked up at her, curiously moved. “My dear, I have to congratulate you.”

“And I to congratulate you, Mrs. Sachs.”

Their eyes met.

Hitherto Judith had been too proud to make the least advance to Reuben’s mother, to respond even to any advance the lattermight choose to make. But things were changed between them now.

She looked down at the sallow face, the shrewd eyes lifted to hers, almost, it seemed, in deprecation, in sympathy almost.

Her beautiful face quivered; stooping forward, she pressed her lips with sudden passion to the other’s wrinkled cheek.

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