His wonted flippancy rang hollow. He paused suddenly, and stole a look at his companion's face in search of a smile, but it was pale and sorrowful. The flush on his own face deepened; his features expressed internal conflict. He addressed a light word to Addie in front. They were nearing the portico; it was raining outside, and a cold wind blew in to meet them. He bent his head down to the delicate little face at his side, and his tones were changed.
'Miss Ansell,' he said tremulously, 'if I have in any way misled you by my reticence, I beg you to believe it was unintentionally. The memory of the pleasant quarters of an hour we have spent together will always——'
'Good God!' said Esther hoarsely, her cheeks flaming, her ears tingling. 'To whom are you apologising?' He looked at her, perplexed. 'Why have you not told Addie?' she forced herself to say.
In the press of the crowd, on the edge of the threshold, he stood still. Dazzled as by a flash of lightning, he gazed at his cousin—her beautifully poised head, covered with its fleecy white shawl, dominating the throng. The shawl became an aureole to his misty vision.
'Have you told her?' he whispered with answering hoarseness.
'No,' said Esther.
'Then don't tell her,' he whispered eagerly.
'I must. She must hear it soon. Such things must ooze out sooner or later.'
'Then let it be later. Promise me this.'
'No good can come of concealment.'
'Promise me—for a little while, till I give you leave.'
His pleading, handsome face was close to hers. She wondered how she could ever have cared for a creature so weak and pitiful.
'So be it,' she breathed.
'Miss Leon's carriage!' bawled the commissionaire. There was a confusion of rain-beaten umbrellas, gleaming carriage-lamps, zigzag reflections on the black pavements, and clattering omnibuses full inside. But the air was fresh.
'Don't go into the rain, Addie,' said Sidney, pressing forward anxiously. 'You're doing all my work to-night. Hullo! where didyouspring from?'
It was Raphael who had elicited the exclamation. He suddenly loomed upon the party, bearing a decrepit, dripping umbrella.
'I thought I should be in time to catch you—and to apologise,' he said, turning to Esther.
'Don't mention it,' murmured Esther, his unexpected appearance completing her mental agitation.
'Hold the umbrella over the girls, you beggar!' said Sidney.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Raphael, poking the rim against a policeman's helmet in his anxiety to obey.
'Don't mention it,' said Addie, smiling.
'All right, sir,' growled the policeman good-humouredly.
Sidney laughed heartily.
'Quite a general amnesty,' he said. 'Ah! here's the carriage. Why didn't you get inside it out of the rain, or stand in the entrance? You're wringing wet!'
'I didn't think of it,' said Raphael. 'Besides, I've only been here a few minutes. The buses are so full when it rains. I had to walk all the way from Whitechapel.'
'You're incorrigible,' grumbled Sidney. 'As if you couldn't have taken a hansom.'
'Why waste money?' said Raphael. They got into the carriage. 'Well, did you enjoy yourselves?' he asked cheerfully.
'Oh yes; thoroughly,' said Sidney. 'Addie wasted two pocket-handkerchiefs over Ophelia—almost enough to pay for that hansom. Miss Ansell doted on the finger of destiny; and I chopped logic and swopped cigarettes with O'Donovan. I hope you enjoyed yourself equally.'
Raphael responded with a melancholy smile. He was seated opposite Esther, and ever and anon some flash of light from the street revealed clearly his sodden, almost shabby garments, and the weariness of his expression. He seemed quite out of harmony with the dainty pleasure party, but just on that account the more in harmony with Esther's old image, the heroic side of him growing only more lovable for the human alloy. She bent towards him at last, and said:
'I am sorry you were deprived of your evening's amusement. I hope the reason didn't add to the unpleasantness.'
'It was nothing,' he murmured awkwardly—'a little unexpected work. One can always go to the theatre.'
'Ah, I am afraid you overwork yourself too much. You mustn't. Think of your own health.'
His look softened. He was in a harassed, sensitive state. The sympathy of her gentle accents, the concern upon the eager little face, seemed to flood his own soul with a self-compassion new to him.
'My health doesn't matter,' he faltered. There were sweet tears in his eyes, a colossal sense of gratitude at his heart. He had always meant to pity her and help her—it was sweeter to be pitied, though of course she could not help him. He had no need of help, and on second thoughts he wondered what room there was for pity.
'No, no; don't talk like that,' said Esther. 'Think of your parents—and Addie.'
The next morning Esther sat in Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's boudoir, filling up some invitation forms for her patroness, who often took advantage of her literary talent in this fashion. Mrs. Goldsmith herself lay back languidly upon a great easy-chair before an asbestos fire, and turned over the leaves of the new number of theAcadæum. Suddenly she uttered a little exclamation.
'What is it?' said Esther.
'They've got a review here of that Jewish novel.'
'Have they?' said Esther, glancing up eagerly. 'I'd given up looking for it.'
'You seem very interested in it,' said Mrs. Goldsmith, with a little surprise.
'Yes, I—I wanted to know what they said about it,' explained Esther quickly; 'one hears so many worthless opinions.'
'Well, I'm glad to see we were all right about it,' said Mrs. Goldsmith, whose eye had been running down the column. 'Listen here: "It is a disagreeable book at best, what might have been a powerful tragedy being disfigured by clumsy workmanship and sordid superfluous detail. The exaggerated unhealthy pessimism which the very young mistake for insight pervades the work, and there are some spiteful touches of observation which seem to point to a woman's hand. Some of the minor personages have the air of being sketched from life. The novel can scarcely be acceptable to the writer's circle. Readers, however, in search of the unusual will find new ground broken in this immature study of Jewish life." There, Esther, isn't that just what I've been saying in other words?'
'It's hardly worth bothering about the book now,' said Esther in lower tones; 'it's such a long time ago now since it came out. I don't know what's the good of reviewing it now. These literary papers always seem so cold and cruel to unknown writers.'
'Cruel! It isn't half what he deserves,' said Mrs. Goldsmith, 'or ought I to say she? Do you think there's anything, Esther, in that idea of its being a woman?'
'Really, dear, I'm sick to death of that book,' said Esther. 'These reviewers always try to be very clever and to see through brick walls. What does it matter if it's a he or a she?'
'It doesn't matter, but it makes it more disgraceful if it's a woman. A woman has no business to know the seamy side of human nature.'
At this instant, a domestic knocked, and announced that Mr. Leonard James had called to see Miss Ansell. Annoyance, surprise, and relief struggled to express themselves on Esther's face.
'Is the gentleman waiting to see me?' she said.
'Yes, miss, he's in the hall.' Esther turned to Mrs. Goldsmith. 'It's a young man I came across unexpectedly last night at the theatre. He's the son of Reb Shemuel, of whom you may have heard. I haven't met him since we were boy and girl together. He asked permission to call, but I didn't expect him so soon.'
'Oh, see him by all means, dear! He is probably anxious to talk over old times.'
'May I ask him up here?' said Esther.
'Not unless you particularly want to introduce him to me. I dare say he would rather have you to himself.'
There was a touch of superciliousness about her tone which Esther rather resented, although not particularly anxious for Levi's social recognition.
'Show him into the library,' she said to the servant. 'I will be down in a minute.'
She lingered a few minutes to finish up the invitations and exchange a few indifferent remarks with her companion, and then went down, wondering at Levi's precipitancy in renewing the acquaintance. She could not help thinkingof the strangeness of life. That time yesterday she had not dreamt of Levi, and now she was about to see him for the second time, and seemed to know him as intimately as if they had never been parted.
Leonard James was pacing the carpet. His face was perturbed, though his stylishly-cut clothes were composed and immaculate. A cloak was thrown loosely across his shoulders. In his right hand he held a bouquet of spring flowers, which he transferred to his left in order to shake hands with her.
'Good afternoon, Esther,' he said heartily. 'By Jove! you have got among tip-top people. I had no idea! Fancy you ordering Jeames de la Pluche about. And how happy you must be among all these books! I've brought you a bouquet. There, isn't it a beauty? I got it at Covent Garden this morning.'
'It's very kind of you,' murmured Esther, not so pleased as she might have been, considering her love of beautiful things. 'But you really ought not to waste your money like that.'
'What nonsense, Esther! Don't forget I'm not in the position my father was. I'm going to be a rich man. No, don't put it into a vase; put it in your own room, where it will remind you of me. Just smell those violets; they are awfully sweet and fresh. I flatter myself it's quite as swell and tasteful as the bouquet you had last night. Who gave you that, Esther?'
The 'Esther' mitigated the off-handedness of the question, but made the sentence jar doubly upon her ear. She might have brought herself to call him 'Levi' in exchange, but then she was not certain he would like it. 'Leonard' was impossible. So she forbore to call him by any name.
'I think Mr. Graham brought it. Won't you sit down?' she said indifferently.
'Thank you. I thought so. Luck that fellow's engaged! Do you know, Esther, I didn't sleep all night?'
'No?' said Esther. 'You seemed quite well when I saw you.'
'So I was, but seeing you again so unexpectedly excitedme. You have been whirling in my brain ever since. I hadn't thought of you for years.'
'I hadn't thought of you,' Esther echoed frankly.
'No, I suppose not,' he said a little ruefully. 'But, anyhow, Fate has brought us together again. I recognised you the moment I set eyes on you, for all your grand clothes and your swell bouquets. I tell you I was just struck all of a heap. Of course, I knew about your luck, but I hadn't realised it. There wasn't any one in the whole theatre who looked the lady more—'pon honour! You'd have no cause to blush in the company of duchesses. In fact, I know a duchess or two who don't look near so refined. I was quite surprised. Do you know if any one had told me you used to live up in a garret——'
'Oh please don't recall unpleasant things,' interrupted Esther petulantly, a little shudder going through her, partly at the picture he called up, partly at his grating vulgarity. Her repulsion to him was growing. Why had he developed so disagreeably? She had not disliked him as a boy, and he certainly had not inherited his traits of coarseness from his father, whom she still conceived as a courtly old gentleman.
'Oh, well, if you don't like it, I won't. I see you're like me; I never think of the Ghetto if I can help it. Well, as I was saying, I haven't had a wink of sleep since I saw you. I lay tossing about, thinking all sorts of things, till I could stand it no longer, and I got up and dressed and walked about the streets, and strayed into Covent Garden Market, where the inspiration came upon me to get you this bouquet. For, of course, it was about you that I had been thinking——'
'About me?' said Esther, turning pale.
'Yes, of course. Don't makeSchnecks; you know what I mean. I can't help using the old expression when I look at you; the past seems all come back again. They were happy days—weren't they, Esther?—when I used to come up to see you in Royal Street. I think you were a little sweet on me in those days, Esther, and I know I was regular mashed on you.'
He looked at her with a fond smile.
'I dare say you were a silly boy,' said Esther, colouring uneasily under his gaze. 'However, you needn't reproach yourself now.'
'Reproach myself, indeed! Never fear that. What I have been reproaching myself with all night is never having looked you up. Somehow, do you know, I kept asking myself whether I hadn't made a fool of myself lately, and I kept thinking things might have been different if——'
'Nonsense, nonsense!' interrupted Esther with an embarrassed laugh. 'You've been doing very well, learning to know the world, and studying law, and mixing with pleasant people.'
'Ah, Esther,' he said, shaking his head, 'it's very good of you to say that. I don't say I've done anything particularly foolish or out-of-the-way; but when a man is alone he sometimes gets a little reckless and wastes his time, and you know what it is. I've been thinking if I had some one to keep me steady, some one I could respect, it would be the best thing that could happen to me.'
'Oh, but surely you ought to have sense enough to take care of yourself! And there is always your father. Why don't you see more of him?'
'Don't chaff a man when you see he's in earnest. You know what I mean. It's you I am thinking of.'
'Me? Oh, well, if you think my friendship can be of any use to you, I shall be delighted. Come and see me sometimes, and tell me of your struggles.'
'You know I don't mean that,' he said desperately. 'Couldn't we be more than friends? Couldn't we commence again—where we left off?'
'How do you mean?' she murmured.
'Why are you so cold to me?' he burst out. 'Why do you make it so hard for me to speak? You know I love you; that I fell in love with you all over again last night. I never really forgot you; you were always deep down in my breast. All that I said about steadying me wasn't a lie. I felt that, too. But the real thing I feel is the need of you. I want you to care for me as I care for you. You used to, Esther; you know you did.'
'I know nothing of the kind,' said Esther; 'and I can'tunderstand why a young fellow like you wants to bother his head with such ideas. You've got to make your way in the world.'
'I know, I know; that's why I want you. I didn't tell you the exact truth last night, Esther, but I must really earn some money soon. All that two thousand is used up, and I only get along by squeezing some money out of the old man every now and again. Don't frown; he got a rise of screw three years ago, and can well afford it. Now, that's what I said to myself last night: if I were engaged, it would be an incentive to earning something.'
'For a Jewish young man you are fearfully unpractical,' said Esther, with a forced smile. 'Fancy proposing to a girl without even prospects of prospects.'
'Oh, but Ihavegot prospects. I tell you I shall make no end of money on the stage.'
'Or no beginning,' she said, finding the facetious vein easiest.
'No fear. I know I've got as much talent as Bob Andrews (he admits it himself) andhedraws his thirty quid a week.'
'Wasn't that the man who appeared at the police-court the other day for being drunk and disorderly?'
'Y-e-es,' admitted Leonard, a little disconcerted. 'He is a very good fellow, but he loses his head when he's in liquor.'
'I wonder you can care for society of that sort,' said Esther.
'Perhaps you're right. They're not a very refined lot. I tell you what, I'd like to go on the stage, but I'm not mad on it, and if you only say the word I'll give it up. There! And I'll go on with my law studies, honour bright I will!'
'I should, if I were you,' she said.
'Yes, but I can't do it without encouragement. Won't you say "Yes"? Let's strike the bargain. I'll stick to law, and you'll stick to me.'
She shook her head.
'I am afraid I could not promise anything you mean. As I said before, I shall always be glad to see you. If you do well, no one will rejoice more than I.'
'Rejoice! What's the good of that to me? I want you to care for me; I want to look forward to your being my wife.'
'Really I cannot take advantage of a moment of folly like this. You don't know what you're saying. You saw me last night after many years, and in your gladness at seeing an old friend you flare up and fancy you're in love with me. Why, who ever heard of such foolish haste? Go back to your studies, and in a day or two you will find the flame sinking as rapidly as it leapt up.'
'No, no! Nothing of the kind!' His voice was thicker and there was real passion in it. She grew dearer to him as the hope of her love receded. 'I couldn't forget you. I care for you awfully. I realised last night that my feeling for you is quite unlike what I have ever felt towards any other girl. Don't say no! Don't send me away despairing. I can hardly realise that you have grown so strange and altered. Surely you oughtn't to put on any side with me. Remember the times we have had together.'
'I remember,' she said gently. 'But I do not want to marry anyone; indeed I don't.'
'Then, if there is no one else in your thoughts, why shouldn't it be me? There! I won't press you for an answer now. Only don't say it's out of the question.'
'I'm afraid I must.'
'No, you mustn't, Esther—you mustn't!' he exclaimed excitedly. 'Think of what it means for me! You are the only Jewish girl I shall ever care for; and father would be pleased if I were to marry you. You know if I wanted to marry aShiksahthere'd be awful rows. Don't treat me as if I were some outsider with no claim upon you. I believe we should get on splendidly together, you and me. We've been through the same sort of thing in childhood; we should understand each other, and be in sympathy with each other in a way I could never be with another girl, and I doubt if you could with another fellow.'
The words burst from him like a torrent, with excited, foreign-like gestures. Esther's headache was coming on badly.
'What would be the use of my deceiving you?' she saidgently. 'I don't think I shall ever marry. I'm sure I could never make you—or any one else—happy. Won't you let me be your friend?'
'Friend!' he echoed bitterly. 'I know what it is—I'm poor! I've got no money-bags to lay at your feet. You're like all the Jewish girls, after all. But I only ask you to wait—I shall have plenty of money by-and-by. Who knows what more luck my father might drop in for? There are lots of rich religious cranks. And then I'll work hard, honour bright I will.'
'Pray be reasonable,' said Esther quietly. 'You know you are talking at random. Yesterday this time you had no idea of such a thing. To-day you are all on fire. To-morrow you will forget all about it.'
'Never! Never!' he cried. 'Haven't I remembered you all these years? They talk of man's faithlessness and woman's faithfulness. It seems to me it's all the other way. Women are a deceptive lot.'
'You know you have no right whatever to talk like that to me!' said Esther, her sympathy beginning to pass over into annoyance. 'To-morrow you will be sorry. Hadn't you better go before you give yourself—and me—more cause for regret?'
'Ho! you are sending me away, are you?' he said in angry surprise.
'I am certainly suggesting it as the wisest course.'
'Oh, don't give me any of your fine phrases!' he said brutally. 'I see what it is—I've made a mistake. You're a stuck-up, conceited little thing! You think because you live in a grand house nobody is good enough for you! But what are you, after all? ASchnorrer—that's all! ASchnorrerliving on the charity of strangers. If I mix with grand folks, it is as an independent man and an equal; but you, rather than marry any one who mightn't be able to give you carriages and footmen, you prefer to remain aSchnorrer!'
Esther was white, and her lips trembled.
'Now I must ask you to go,' she said.
'All right—don't flurry yourself!' he said savagely. 'You don't impress me with your airs. Try them onpeople who don't know what you were—aSchnorrer'sdaughter! Yes, your father was always aSchnorrer, and you are his child. It's in the blood. Ha! ha! ha! Moses Ansell's daughter! Moses Ansell's daughter—a pedlar, who went about the country with brass jewellery and stood in the Lane with lemons, andschnorredhalf-crowns of my father! You took jolly good care to ship him off to America, but 'pon my honour! you can't expect others to forget him as quickly as you. It's a rich joke, you refusing me! You're not fit for me to wipe my shoes on. My mother never cared for me to go to your garret; she said I must mix with my equals, and goodness knew what disease I might pick up in the dirt. 'Pon my honour the old girl was right.'
'Shewasright!' Esther was stung into retorting. 'You must mix only with your equals. Please leave the room now, or else I shall.'
His face changed. His frenzy gave way to a momentary shock of consternation as he realised what he had done.
'No, no, Esther! I was mad; I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't mean it. Forget it.'
'I cannot. It was quite true,' she said bitterly. 'I am only aSchnorrer'sdaughter. Well, are you going, or must I?'
He muttered something inarticulate, then seized his hat sulkily, and went to the door without looking at her.
'You have forgotten something,' she said.
He turned; her forefinger pointed to the bouquet on the table. He had a fresh access of rage at the sight of it, jerked it contemptuously to the floor with a sweep of his hat, and stamped upon it. Then he rushed from the room and an instant after she heard the hall-door slam.
She sank against the table, sobbing nervously. It was her first proposal. ASchnorrer, and the daughter of aSchnorrer! Yes, that was what she was. And she had even repaid her benefactors with deception. What hopes could she yet cherish? In literature she was a failure; the critics gave her few gleams of encouragement, while all her acquaintances, from Raphael downwards, wouldturn and rend her, should she dare declare herself. Nay, she was ashamed of herself for the mischief she had wrought. No one in the world cared for her; she was quite alone. The only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue—'A little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches.' Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right! She ought to think herself lucky to get him. Again, she asked herself, what had existence to offer her? Gradually her sobs ceased; she remembered to-night would beSedernight, and her thoughts, so violently turned Ghetto-wards, went back to that night, soon after poor Benjamin's death, when she sat before the garret-fire striving to picture the larger life of the Future.
Well, this was the Future!
The same evening Leonard James sat in the stalls of the Colosseum Music-Hall, sipping champagne and smoking a cheroot. He had not been to his chambers (which were only round the corner) since the hapless interview with Esther, wandering about in the streets and the clubs in a spirit compounded of outraged dignity, remorse, and recklessness. All men must dine; and dinner at the Flamingo Club soothed his wounded soul and left only the recklessness, which is a sensation not lacking in agreeableness. Through the rosy mists of the Burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which had hovered before him all the afternoon like a tantalising phantom; at the Chartreuse stage he began to wonder what hallucination, what aberration of sense, had overcome him that he should have been stirred to his depths and distressed so hugely. Warmer faces were these that swam before him, faces fuller of the joy of life. The devil take all stuck-up little saints!
About eleven o'clock, when the great ballet of 'Venetia' was over, Leonard hurried round to the stage-door, saluted the doorkeeper with a friendly smile and a sixpence, and sent in his card to Miss Gladys Wynne, on the chance that she might have no supper engagement. Miss Wynne was only a humblecoryphée, but the admirers of her talent were numerous, and Leonard counted himself fortunate in that she was able to afford him the privilege of her society to-night. She came out to him in a red fur-lined cloak, for the air was keen. She was a majestic being, with a florid complexion not entirely artificial, big blue eyes, and teeth of that whiteness which is the practical equivalent of a sense of humour in evoking the possessor's smiles. They drove to a restaurant a few hundred yardsdistant, for Miss Wynne detested using her feet except to dance with. It was a fashionable restaurant, where the prices obligingly rose after ten, to accommodate the purses of the supperclientèle. Miss Wynne always drank champagne, except when alone, and in politeness Leonard had to imbibe more of this frothy compound. He knew he would have to pay for the day's extravagance by a week of comparative abstemiousness, but recklessness generally meant magnificence with him. They occupied a cosy little corner behind a screen, and Miss Wynne bubbled over with laughter like an animated champagne-bottle. One or two of his acquaintances espied him and winked genially, and Leonard had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not dissipating his money without purchasing enhanced reputation. He had not felt in gayer spirits for months than when, with Gladys Wynne on his arm and a cigarette in his mouth, he sauntered out of the brilliantly-lit restaurant into feverish dusk of the midnight street, shot with points of fire.
'Hansom, sir?'
'Levi!'
A great cry of anguish rent the air. Leonard's cheeks burnt. Involuntarily he looked round. Then his heart stood still. There, a few yards from him, rooted to the pavement, with stony, staring face, was Reb Shemuel. The old man wore an unbrushed high hat and an uncouth, unbuttoned overcoat. His hair and beard were quite white now, and the strong countenance, lined with countless wrinkles, was distorted with pain and astonishment. He looked a cross between an ancient prophet and a shabby street-lunatic. The unprecedented absence of the son from theSederceremonial had filled the Reb's household with the gravest alarm. Nothing short of death or mortal sickness could be keeping the boy away. It was long before the Reb could bring himself to commence theAgadahwithout his son to ask the time-honoured opening question, and when he did he paused every minute to listen to footsteps or the voice of the wind without. The joyous holiness of the Festival was troubled; a black cloud overshadowed the shining table-cloth; at supperthe food choked him. ButSederwas over, and yet no sign of the missing guest, no word of explanation. In poignant anxiety the old man walked the three miles that lay between him and tidings of the beloved son. At his chambers he learnt that their occupant had not been in all day. Another thing he learnt there, too; for theMezuzahwhich he had fixed up on the door-post when his boy moved in had been taken down, and it filled his mind with a dread suspicion that Levi had not been eating at the kosher restaurant in Hatton Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighbourhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside the Ghetto, and the radius of his life was proportionately narrow, with the intensity that narrowness forces on a big soul. The streets dazzled him; he looked blinkingly hither and thither in the despairing hope of finding his boy. His lips moved in silent prayer; he raised his eyes beseechingly to the cold glittering heavens. Then all at once, as the clocks pointed to midnight, he found him. Found him coming out of an unclean place, where he had violated the Passover. Found him—fit climax of horror—with the 'strange woman' of theProverbs, for whom the faithful Jew has a hereditary hatred.
His son—his, Reb Shemuel's! He, the servant of the Most High, the teacher of the Faith to reverential thousands, had brought a son into the world to profane the Name! Verily, his grey hairs would go down with sorrow to a speedy grave! And the sin was half his own; he had weakly abandoned his boy in the midst of a great city. For one awful instant, that seemed an eternity, the old man and the young faced each other across the chasm which divided their lives. To the son the shock was scarcely less violent than to the father. TheSeder, whichthe day's unwonted excitement had clean swept out of his mind, recurred to him in a flash, and by the light of it he understood the puzzle of his father's appearance. The thought of explaining rushed up only to be dismissed. The door of the restaurant had not yet ceased swinging behind him; there was too much to explain. He felt that all was over between him and his father. It was unpleasant, terrible even, for it meant the annihilation of his resources. But though he still had an almost physical fear of the old man, far more terrible even than the presence of his father was the presence of Miss Gladys Wynne. To explain, to brazen it out—either course was equally impossible. He was not a brave man, but at that moment he felt death were preferable to allowing her to be the witness of such a scene as must ensue. His resolution was taken within a few brief seconds of the tragicrencontre. With wonderful self-possession, he nodded to the cabman who had put the question, and whose vehicle was drawn up opposite the restaurant. Hastily he helped the unconscious Gladys into the hansom. He was putting his foot on the step himself, when Reb Shemuel's paralysis relaxed suddenly. Outraged by this final pollution of the Festival, he ran forward and laid his hand on Levi's shoulder. His face was ashen, his heart thumped painfully; the hand on Levi's cloak shook as with palsy.
Levi winced; the old awe was upon him. Through a blinding whirl he saw Gladys staring wonderingly at the queer-looking intruder. He gathered all his mental strength together with a mighty effort, shook off the great trembling hand, and leapt into the hansom.
'Drive on!' came in strange guttural tones from his parched throat.
The driver lashed the horse; a rough jostled the old man aside and slammed the door to; Leonard mechanically threw him a coin; the hansom glided away.
'Who was that, Leonard?' said Miss Wynne curiously.
'Nobody; only an old Jew who supplies me with cash.'
Gladys laughed merrily—a rippling, musical laugh. She knew the sort of person.
TheFlag of Judah, price one penny, largest circulation of any Jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze, and its communal contemporaries. At Passover there had been an illusive augmentation of advertisements proclaiming the virtues of unleavened everything. With the end of the Festival most of these fell out, staying as short a time as the daffodils. Raphael was in despair at the meagre attenuated appearance of the erst prosperous-looking pages. The weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience.
'We shall never succeed,' said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic hair, 'till we run it for the Upper Ten. These ten people can make the paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance.'
'But they must surely reckon with us sooner or later,' said Raphael.
'It will be a long reckoning, I fear; you take my advice, and put in more butter. It'll bekosherbutter, coming from us.'
The little Bohemian laughed as heartily as his eyeglass permitted.
'No; we must stick to our guns. After all, we have had some very good things lately. Those articles of Pinchas's are not bad, either.'
'They're so beastly egotistical. Still, his English is improving, and his theories are ingenious, and far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of Goldsmith, which you will put in.'
Raphael flushed a little, and began to walk up and down the new and superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his pipe. The appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted with oldnewspapers and scraps of letters. A huge picture of an Atlantic liner, the gift of a steamship company, leaned cumbrously against a wall.
'Still, all our literary excellences,' pursued Sampson, 'are outweighed by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages, and deaths. We are gravelled for lack of that sort of matter. What is the use of your elaborate essay on the Septuagint, when the public is dying to hear who's dead?'
'Yes, I am afraid it is so,' said Raphael, emitting a huge volume of smoke.
'I'm sure it is so. If you would only give me a freer hand I feel sure I could work up that column. We can, at least, make a better show. I would avoid the danger of discovery by shifting the scene to foreign parts. I could marry some people in Bombay, and kill some in Cape Town, redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at Cairo and Cincinnati. Our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but we should take the shine out of them in cosmopolitanism.'
'No, no; remember thatMeshumad,' said Raphael, smiling.
'He was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse we should have been saved that contretemps. We have one death this week, fortunately, and I am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. But we haven't had a birth for three weeks running; it's just ruining our reputation. Everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile lot, and it looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. Ta-ra-ra-ta! Now, you must really let me have a birth. I give you my word nobody'll suspect it isn't genuine. Come now! How's this?'
He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Raphael, who read:
'Birth.'On the 15th inst., at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife of Joseph Samuels of a son.'
'Birth.
'On the 15th inst., at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife of Joseph Samuels of a son.'
'There!' said Sampson proudly. 'Who would believethe little beggar had no existence? Nobody lives in Kennington, and that East Stuart Lane is a master-stroke. You might suspect Stuart Lane, but nobody would ever dream there's no such place asEastStuart Lane. Don't say the little chap must die; I begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. May I announce him? Don't be too scrupulous. Who'll be a penny the worse for it?'
He began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody.
Raphael hesitated; his moral fibre had been weakened. It is impossible to touch print and not be defiled.
Suddenly Sampson ceased to whistle, and smote his head with his chubby fist.
'Ass that I am!' he exclaimed.
'What new reason have you discovered to think so?' said Raphael.
'Why, we dare not create boys. We shall be found out; boys must be circumcised, and some of the periphrastically styled "Initiators into the Abrahamic Covenant" may spot us. It was a girl that Mrs. Joseph Samuels was guilty of.'
He amended the sex.
Raphael laughed heartily.
'Put it by—there's another day yet—we shall see.'
'Very well,' said Sampson resignedly. 'Perhaps by to-morrow we shall be in luck, and able to sing "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." By the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that quotation on the ground it was from the New Testament?'
'Yes,' said Raphael, smiling. 'Of course the man doesn't know his Old Testament, but I trace his misconception to his having heard Handel'sMessiah. I wonder he doesn't find fault with the Morning Service for containing the Lord's prayer, or with Moses for saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."'
'Still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for,' said the sub-editor. 'And we don't. We have cut down our Provincial Notes to a column. My idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives.Every man's name we mention means at least one copy sold. Why can't we drag in a couple of thousand names every week?'
'That would make our circulation altogether nominal,' laughed Raphael, not taking the suggestion seriously.
Little Sampson was not only the Mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting Raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as Sweeney Todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted as news or as advertisements, against the self-puffers and the axe-grinders. He also taught Raphael how to commence interesting correspondence and how to close awkward. TheFlagplayed a part in many violent discussions. Little Sampson was great in inventing communal crises, and in getting the public to believe it was excited. He also won a great victory over the other party every three weeks; Raphael did not wish to have so many of these victories, but Little Sampson pointed out that if he did not have them the rival newspaper would annex them. One of the earliest sensations of theFlagwas a correspondence exposing the misdeeds of some communal officials, but in the end the very persons who made the allegations ate humble pie. Evidently official pressure had been brought to bear, for red tape rampant might have been the heraldic device of Jewish officialdom. In no department did Jews exhibit more strikingly their marvellous powers of assimilation to their neighbours.
Among the discussions which rent the body politic was the question of building a huge synagogue for the poor. TheFlagsaid it would only concentrate them, and its word prevailed. There were also the grave questions of English and harmoniums in the synagogue, of the confirmation of girls and their utilisation in the choir. The Rabbinate, whose grave difficulties in reconciling all parties to its rule were augmented by the existence of theFlag, pronounced it heinous to introduce English excerpts into the liturgy; if, however, they were not read from thecentral platform, they were legitimate; harmoniums were permissible, but only during special services, and an organisation of mixed voices was allowable, but not a mixed choir; children might be confirmed, but the word 'confirmation' should be avoided. Poor Rabbinate! The politics of the little community were extremely complex. What with rabid zealots yearning for the piety of the good old times, spiritually-minded ministers working with uncomfortable earnestness for a larger Judaism, radicals dropping out, moderates clamouring for quiet, and schismatics organising new and tiresome movements, the Rabbinate could scarcely do aught else than emit sonorous platitudes and remain in office.
And beneath all these surface ruffles was the steady silent drift of the new generation away from the old landmarks. The synagogue did not attract; it spoke Hebrew to those whose mother-tongue was English, its appeal was made through channels which conveyed nothing to them, it was out of touch with their real lives, its liturgy prayed for the restoration of sacrifices which they did not want and for the welfare of Babylonian colleges that had ceased to exist. The old generation merely believed its beliefs; if the new as much as professed them, it was only by virtue of the old home associations and the inertia of indifference. Practically it was without religion. The Reform Synagogue, though a centre of culture and prosperity, was cold, crude, and devoid of magnetism. Half a century of stagnant reform and restless dissolution had left orthodoxy still the established doxy. For as orthodoxy evaporated in England, it was replaced by fresh streams from Russia, to be evaporated and replaced in turn, England acting as an automatic distillery. Thus the Rabbinate still reigned, though it scarcely governed either the East End or the West. For the East End formed a Federation of the smaller synagogues to oppose the dominance of the United Synagogue, importing a minister of superior orthodoxy from the Continent, and theFlaghad powerful leaders on the great struggle between plutocracy and democracy, and the voice of Mr. Henry Goldsmith was heard on behalf of Whitechapel. And the West, in so faras it had spiritual aspirations, fed them on non-Jewish literature and the higher thought of the age. The finer spirits, indeed, were groping for a purpose and a destiny, doubtful even if the racial isolation they perpetuated were not an anachronism. While the community had been battling for civil and religious liberty, there had been a unifying, almost spiritualising, influence in the sense of common injustice, and the questionCui bonohad been postponed. Drowning men do not ask if life is worth living. Later the Russian persecutions came to interfere again with national introspection, sending a powerful wave of racial sympathy round the earth. In England a backwash of the wave left the Asmonean society, wherein, for the first time in history, Jews gathered with nothing in common save blood—artists, lawyers, writers, doctors—men who in pre-emancipation times might have become Christians like Heine, but who now formed an effective protest against the popular conceptions of the Jew, and a valuable antidote to the disproportionate notoriety achieved by less creditable types. At the Asmonean society, brilliant free-lances, each thinking himself a solitary exception to a race of bigots, met one another in mutual astonishment. Raphael alienated several readers by uncompromising approval of this characteristically modern movement. Another symptom of the new intensity of national brotherhood was the attempt towards amalgamating the Spanish and German communities, but brotherhood broke down under the disparity of revenue, the rich Spanish sect displaying once again the exclusiveness which has marked its history.
Amid these internal problems, the unspeakable immigrant was an added thorn. Very often the victim of Continental persecution was assisted on to America, but the idea that he was hurtful to native labour rankled in the minds of Englishmen, and the Jewish leaders were anxious to remove it, all but proving him a boon. In despair it was sought to anglicise him by discourses in Yiddish. With the poor alien question was connected the return to Palestine. The Holy Land League still pinned its faith to Zion, and theFlagwas with it to theextent of preferring the ancient fatherland, as the scene of agricultural experiments, to the South American soils selected by other schemes. It was generally felt that the redemption of Judaism lay largely in a return to the land, after several centuries of less primitive and more degrading occupations. When South America was chosen, Strelitski was the first to counsel the League to co-operate in the experiment, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. But for the orthodox the difficulties of regeneration by the spade were enhanced by the Sabbatical Year Institute of the Pentateuch, ordaining that land must lie fallow in the seventh year. It happened that this septennial holiday was just going on, and the faithful Palestine farmers were starving in voluntary martyrdom. TheFlagraised a subscription for their benefit. Raphael wished to head the list with twenty pounds, but on the advice of Little Sampson he broke it up into a variety of small amounts spread over several weeks, and attached to imaginary names and initials. Seeing so many other readers contributing, few readers felt called upon to tax themselves. TheFlagreceived the ornate thanks of a pleiad of Palestine Rabbis for its contribution of twenty-five guineas, two of which were from Mr. Henry Goldsmith. Gideon, the member for Whitechapel, remained callous to the sufferings of his brethren in the Holy Land. In daily contact with so many diverse interests Raphael's mind widened as imperceptibly as the body grows. He learnt the manners of many men and committees—admired the genuine goodness of some of the Jewish philanthropists and the fluent oratory of all, even while he realised the pettiness of their outlook and their reluctance to face facts. They were timorous, with a dread of decisive action and definite speech suggesting the deferential, deprecatory corporeal wrigglings of the mediæval Jew. They seemed to keep strict ward over the technical privileges of the different bodies they belonged to, and in their capacity of members of the Fiddle-de-dee to quarrel with themselves as members of the Fiddle-de-dum, and to pass votes of condolence or congratulation twice over as members of both. But the more he saw of hisrace the more he marvelled at the omnipresent ability, being tempted at times to allow truth to the view that Judaism was a successful sociological experiment, the moral and physical training of a chosen race whose very dietary had been religiously regulated.
And even the revelations of the seamy side of human character, which thrust themselves upon the most purblind of editors, were blessings in disguise. The office of theFlagwas a forcing house for Raphael; many latent thoughts developed into extraordinary maturity. A month of theFlagwas equal to a year of experience in the outside world. And not even Little Sampson himself was keener to appreciate the humours of the office, when no principle was involved; though what made the sub-editor roar with laughter often made the editor miserable for the day. For compensation Raphael had felicities from which Little Sampson was cut off; gladdened by revelations of earnestness and piety in letters that were merely bad English to the sub-editor.
A thing that set them both laughing occurred on the top of their conversation about the reader who objected to quotations from the Old Testament. A package of four oldFlagsarrived, accompanied by a letter. This was the letter: