"No, no," she said, with a grateful smile. "At least not more than usual." Her smile was full of pensive sweetness, which made her face beautiful. It was a face that would have been almost plain but for the soul behind. It was dark, with great earnest eyes. The profile was disappointing, the curves were not perfect, and there was a reminder of Polish origin in the lower jaw and the cheek-bone. Seen from the front, the face fascinated again, in the Eastern glow of its coloring, in the flash of the white teeth, in the depths of the brooding eyes, in the strength of the features that yet softened to womanliest tenderness and charm when flooded by the sunshine of a smile. The figure was _petite_ and graceful, set off by a simple tight-fitting, high-necked dress of ivory silk draped with lace, with a spray of Neapolitan violets at the throat. They sat in a niche of the spacious and artistically furnished drawing-room, in the soft light of the candles, talking quietly while Addie played Chopin.

 

Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's aesthetic instincts had had full play in the elaborate carelessness of the _ensemble_, and the result was a triumph, a medley of Persian luxury and Parisian grace, a dream of somniferous couches and arm-chairs, rich tapestry, vases, fans, engravings, books, bronzes, tiles, plaques and flowers. Mr. Henry Goldsmith was himself a connoisseur in the arts, his own and his father's fortunes having been built up in the curio and antique business, though to old Aaron Goldsmith appreciation had meant strictly pricing, despite his genius for detecting false Correggios and sham Louis Quatorze cabinets.

 

"Do you suffer from headaches?" inquired Raphael solicitously.

 

"A little. The doctor says I studied too much and worked too hard when a little girl. Such is the punishment of perseverance. Life isn't like the copy-books."

 

"Oh, but I wonder your parents let you over-exert yourself."

 

A melancholy smile played about the mobile lips. "I brought myself up," she said. "You look puzzled--Oh, I know! Confess you think I'm Miss Goldsmith!"

 

"Why--are--you--not?" he stammered.

 

"No, my name is Ansell, Esther Ansell."

 

"Pardon me. I am so bad at remembering names in introductions. But I've just come back from Oxford and it's the first time I've been to this house, and seeing you here without a cavalier when we arrived, I thought you lived here."

 

"You thought rightly, I do live here." She laughed gently at his changing expression.

 

"I wonder Sidney never mentioned you to me," he said.

 

"Do you mean Mr. Graham?" she said with a slight blush.

 

"Yes, I know he visits here."

 

"Oh, he is an artist. He has eyes only for the beautiful." She spoke quickly, a little embarrassed.

 

"You wrong him; his interests are wider than that."

 

"Do you know I am so glad you didn't pay me the obvious compliment?" she said, recovering herself. "It looked as if I were fishing for it. I'm so stupid."

 

He looked at her blankly.

 

"_I'm_ stupid," he said, "for I don't know what compliment I missed paying."

 

"If you regret it I shall not think so well of you," she said. "You know I've heard all about your brilliant success at Oxford."

 

"They put all those petty little things in the Jewish papers, don't they?"

 

"I read it in the _Times_," retorted Esther. "You took a double first and the prize for poetry and a heap of other things, but I noticed the prize for poetry, because it is so rare to find a Jew writing poetry."

 

"Prize poetry is not poetry," he reminded her. "But, considering the Jewish Bible contains the finest poetry in the world, I do not see why you should be surprised to find a Jew trying to write some."

 

"Oh, you know what I mean," answered Esther. "What is the use of talking about the old Jews? We seem to be a different race now. Who cares for poetry?"

 

"Our poet's scroll reaches on uninterruptedly through the Middle Ages. The passing phenomenon of to-day must not blind us to the real traits of our race," said Raphael.

 

"Nor must we be blind to the passing phenomenon of to-day," retorted Esther. "We have no ideals now."

 

"I see Sidney has been infecting you," he said gently.

 

"No, no; I beg you will not think that," she said, flushing almost resentfully. "I have thought these things, as the Scripture tells us to meditate on the Law, day and night, sleeping and waking, standing up and sitting down."

 

"You cannot have thought of them without prejudice, then," he answered, "if you say we have no ideals."

 

"I mean, we're not responsive to great poetry--to the message of a Browning for instance."

 

"I deny it. Only a small percentage of his own race is responsive. I would wager our percentage is proportionally higher. But Browning's philosophy of religion is already ours, for hundreds of years every Saturday night every Jew has been proclaiming the view of life and Providence in 'Pisgah Sights.'"

 

 

All's lend and borrow,

Good, see, wants evil,

Joy demands sorrow,

Angel weds devil.

 

 

"What is this but the philosophy of our formula for ushering out the Sabbath and welcoming in the days of toil, accepting the holy and the profane, the light and the darkness?"

 

"Is that in the prayer-book?" said Esther astonished.

 

"Yes; you see you are ignorant of our own ritual while admiring everything non-Jewish. Excuse me if I am frank, Miss Ansell, but there are many people among us who rave over Italian antiquities but can see nothing poetical in Judaism. They listen eagerly to Dante but despise David."

 

"I shall certainly look up the liturgy," said Esther. "But that will not alter my opinion. The Jew may say these fine things, but they are only a tune to him. Yes, I begin to recall the passage in Hebrew--I see my father making _Havdolah_--the melody goes in my head like a sing-song. But I never in my life thought of the meaning. As a little girl I always got my conscious religious inspiration out of the New Testament. It sounds very shocking, I know."

 

"Undoubtedly you put your finger on an evil. But there is religious edification in common prayers and ceremonies even when divorced from meaning. Remember the Latin prayers of the Catholic poor. Jews may be below Judaism, but are not all men below their creed? If the race which gave the world the Bible knows it least--" He stopped suddenly, for Addie was playing pianissimo, and although she was his sister, he did not like to put her out.

 

"It comes to this," said Esther when Chopin spoke louder, "our prayer-book needs depolarization, as Wendell Holmes says of the Bible."

 

"Exactly," assented Raphael. "And what our people need is to make acquaintance with the treasure of our own literature. Why go to Browning for theism, when the words of his 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' are but a synopsis of a famous Jewish argument:

 

 

"'I see the whole design.

I, who saw Power, see now Love, perfect too.

Perfect I call Thy plan,

Thanks that I was a man!

Maker, remaker, complete, I trust what thou shalt do.'

 

 

"It sounds like a bit of Bachja. That there is a Power outside us nobody denies; that this Power works for our good and wisely, is not so hard to grant when the facts of the soul are weighed with the facts of Nature. Power, Love, Wisdom--there you have a real trinity which makes up the Jewish God. And in this God we trust, incomprehensible as are His ways, unintelligible as is His essence. 'Thy ways are not My ways nor Thy thoughts My thoughts.' That comes into collision with no modern philosophies; we appeal to experience and make no demands upon the faculty for believing things 'because they are impossible.' And we are proud and happy in that the dread Unknown God of the infinite Universe has chosen our race as the medium by which to reveal His will to the world. We are sanctified to His service. History testifies that this has verily been our mission, that we have taught the world religion as truly as Greece has taught beauty and science. Our miraculous survival through the cataclysms of ancient and modern dynasties is a proof that our mission is not yet over."

 

The sonata came to an end; Percy Saville started a comic song, playing his own accompaniment. Fortunately, it was loud and rollicking.

 

"And do you really believe that we are sanctified to God's service?" said Esther, casting a melancholy glance at Percy's grimaces.

 

"Can there be any doubt of it? God made choice of one race to be messengers and apostles, martyrs at need to His truth. Happily, the sacred duty is ours," he said earnestly, utterly unconscious of the incongruity that struck Esther so keenly. And yet, of the two, he had by far the greater gift of humor. It did not destroy his idealism, but kept it in touch with things mundane. Esther's vision, though more penetrating, lacked this corrective of humor, which makes always for breadth of view. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, that the trivial, sordid details of life's comedy hurt her so acutely that she could scarcely sit out the play patiently. Where Raphael would have admired the lute, Esther was troubled by the little rifts in it.

 

"But isn't that a narrow conception of God's revelation?" she asked.

 

"No. Why should God not teach through a great race as through a great man?"

 

"And you really think that Judaism is not dead, intellectually speaking?"

 

"How can it die? Its truths are eternal, deep in human nature and the constitution of things. Ah, I wish I could get you to see with the eyes of the great Rabbis and sages in Israel; to look on this human life of ours, not with the pessimism of Christianity, but as a holy and precious gift, to be enjoyed heartily yet spent in God's service--birth, marriage, death, all holy; good, evil, alike holy. Nothing on God's earth common or purposeless. Everything chanting the great song of God's praise; the morning stars singing together, as we say in the Dawn Service."

 

As he spoke Esther's eyes filled with strange tears. Enthusiasm always infected her, and for a brief instant her sordid universe seemed to be transfigured to a sacred joyous reality, full of infinite potentialities of worthy work and noble pleasure. A thunder of applausive hands marked the end of Percy Saville's comic song. Mr. Montagu Samuels was beaming at his brother's grotesque drollery. There was an interval of general conversation, followed by a round game in which Raphael and Esther had to take part. It was very dull, and they were glad to find themselves together again.

 

"Ah, yes," said Esther, sadly, resuming the conversation as if there had been no break, "but this is a Judaism of your own creation. The real Judaism is a religion of pots and pans. It does not call to the soul's depths like Christianity."

 

"Again, it is a question of the point of view taken. From a practical, our ceremonialism is a training in self-conquest, while it links the generations 'bound each to each by natural piety,' and unifies our atoms dispersed to the four corners of the earth as nothing else could. From a theoretical, it is but an extension of the principle I tried to show you. Eating, drinking, every act of life is holy, is sanctified by some relation to heaven. We will not arbitrarily divorce some portions of life from religion, and say these are of the world, the flesh, or the devil, any more than we will save up our religion for Sundays. There is no devil, no original sin, no need of salvation from it, no need of a mediator. Every Jew is in as direct relation with God as the Chief Rabbi. Christianity is an historical failure--its counsels of perfection, its command to turn the other cheek--a farce. When a modern spiritual genius, a Tolstoi, repeats it, all Christendom laughs, as at a new freak of insanity. All practical, honorable men are Jews at heart. Judaism has never tampered with human dignity, nor perverted the moral consciousness. Our housekeeper, a Christian, once said to my sifter Addie, 'I'm so glad to see you do so much charity, Miss; _I_ need not, because I'm saved already.' Judaism is the true 'religion of humanity.' It does not seek to make men and women angels before their time. Our marriage service blesses the King of the Universe, who has created 'joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exultation, pleasure and delight, love, brotherhood, peace and fellowship.'"

 

"It is all very beautiful in theory," said Esther. "But so is Christianity, which is also not to be charged with its historical caricatures, nor with its superiority to average human nature. As for the doctrine of original sin, it is the one thing that the science of heredity has demonstrated, with a difference. But do not be alarmed, I do not call myself a Christian because I see some relation between the dogmas of Christianity and the truths of experience, nor even because"--here she smiled, wistfully--"I should like to believe in Jesus. But you are less logical. When you said there was no devil, I felt sure I was right; that you belong to the modern schools, who get rid of all the old beliefs but cannot give up the old names. You know, as well as I do, that, take away the belief in hell, a real old-fashioned hell of fire and brimstone, even such Judaism as survives would freeze to death without that genial warmth."

 

"I know nothing of the kind," he said, "and I am in no sense a modern. I am (to adopt a phrase which is, to me, tautologous) an orthodox Jew."

 

Esther smiled. "Forgive my smiling," she said. "I am thinking of the orthodox Jews I used to know, who used to bind their phylacteries on their arms and foreheads every morning."

 

"I bind my phylacteries on my arm and forehead every morning," he said, simply.

 

"What!" gasped Esther. "You an Oxford man!"

 

"Yes," he said, gravely. "Is it so astonishing to you?"

 

"Yes, it is. You are the first educated Jew I have ever met who believed in that sort of thing."

 

"Nonsense?" he said, inquiringly. "There are hundreds like me."

 

She shook her head.

 

"There's the Rev. Joseph Strelitski. I suppose _he_ does, but then he's paid for it."

 

"Oh, why will you sneer at Strelitski?" he said, pained. "He has a noble soul. It is to the privilege of his conversation that I owe my best understanding of Judaism."

 

"Ah, I was wondering why the old arguments sounded so different, so much more convincing, from your lips," murmured Esther. "Now I know; because he wears a white tie. That sets up all my bristles of contradiction when he opens his mouth."

 

"But I wear a white tie, too," said Raphael, his smile broadening in sympathy with the slow response on the girl's serious face.

 

"That's not a trade-mark," she protested. "But forgive me; I didn't know Strelitski was a friend of yours. I won't say a word against him any more. His sermons really are above the average, and he strives more than the others to make Judaism more spiritual."

 

"More spiritual!" he repeated, the pained expression returning. "Why, the very theory of Judaism has always been the spiritualization of the material."

 

"And the practice of Judaism has always been the materialization of the spiritual," she answered.

 

He pondered the saying thoughtfully, his face growing sadder.

 

"You have lived among your books," Esther went on. "I have lived among the brutal facts. I was born in the Ghetto, and when you talk of the mission of Israel, silent sardonic laughter goes through me as I think of the squalor and the misery."

 

"God works through human suffering; his ways are large," said Raphael, almost in a whisper.

 

"And wasteful," said Esther. "Spare me clerical platitudes a la Strelitski. I have seen so much."

 

"And suffered much?" he asked gently.

 

She nodded scarce perceptibly. "Oh, if you only knew my life!"

 

"Tell it me," he said. His voice was soft and caressing. His frank soul seemed to pierce through all conventionalities, and to go straight to hers.

 

"I cannot, not now," she murmured. "There is so much to tell."

 

"Tell me a little," he urged.

 

She began to speak of her history, scarce knowing why, forgetting he was a stranger. Was it racial affinity, or was it merely the spiritual affinity of souls that feel their identity through all differences of brain?

 

"What is the use?" she said. "You, with your childhood, could never realize mine. My mother died when I was seven; my father was a Russian pauper alien who rarely got work. I had an elder brother of brilliant promise. He died before he was thirteen. I had a lot of brothers and sisters and a grandmother, and we all lived, half starved, in a garret."

 

Her eyes grew humid at the recollection; she saw the spacious drawing-room and the dainty bric-a-brac through a mist.

 

"Poor child!" murmured Raphael.

 

"Strelitski, by the way, lived in our street then. He sold cigars on commission and earned an honest living. Sometimes I used to think that is why he never cares to meet my eye; he remembers me and knows I remember him; at other times I thought he knew that I saw through his professions of orthodoxy. But as you champion him, I suppose I must look for a more creditable reason for his inability to look me straight in the face. Well, I grew up, I got on well at school, and about ten years ago I won a prize given by Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, whose kindly interest I excited thenceforward. At thirteen I became a teacher. This had always been my aspiration: when it was granted I was more unhappy than ever. I began to realize acutely that we were terribly poor. I found it difficult to dress so as to insure the respect of my pupils and colleagues; the work was unspeakably hard and unpleasant; tiresome and hungry little girls had to be ground to suit the inspectors, and fell victims to the then prevalent competition among teachers for a high percentage of passes. I had to teach Scripture history and I didn't believe in it. None of us believed in it; the talking serpent, the Egyptian miracles, Samson, Jonah and the whale, and all that. Everything about me was sordid and unlovely. I yearned for a fuller, wider life, for larger knowledge. I hungered for the sun. In short, I was intensely miserable. At home things went from bad to worse; often I was the sole bread-winner, and my few shillings a week were our only income. My brother Solomon grew up, but could not get into a decent situation because he must not work on the Sabbath. Oh, if you knew how young lives are cramped and shipwrecked at the start by this one curse of the Sabbath, you would not wish us to persevere in our isolation. It sent a mad thrill of indignation through me to find my father daily entreating the deaf heavens."

 

He would not argue now. His eyes were misty.

 

"Go on!" he murmured.

 

"The rest is nothing. Mrs. Henry Goldsmith stepped in as the _dea ex machina_. She had no children, and she took it into her head to adopt me. Naturally I was dazzled, though anxious about my brothers and sisters. But my father looked upon it as a godsend. Without consulting me, Mrs. Goldsmith arranged that he and the other children should be shipped to America: she got him some work at a relative's in Chicago. I suppose she was afraid of having the family permanently hanging about the Terrace. At first I was grieved; but when the pain of parting was over I found myself relieved to be rid of them, especially of my father. It sounds shocking, I know, but I can confess all my vanities now, for I have learned all is vanity. I thought Paradise was opening before me; I was educated by the best masters, and graduated at the London University. I travelled and saw the Continent; had my fill of sunshine and beauty. I have had many happy moments, realized many childish ambiti............