Part 14 (1/2)

Esther was left at home with a headache, little expecting pleasanter company. She hesitated about receiving Raphael, but on hearing that he had come to see her rather than her patrons, she smoothed her hair, put on a prettier frock, and went down into the drawing-room, where she found him striding restlessly in bespattered boots and moist overcoat. When he became aware of her presence, he went towards her eagerly, and shook her hand with jerky awkwardness.

'How are you?' he said heartily.

'Very well, thank you,' she replied automatically; then a twinge as of reproach at the falsehood darted across her brow, and she added: 'A trifle of the usual headache. I hope you are well?'

'Quite, thank you,' he rejoined.

His face rather contradicted him; it looked thin, pale, and weary.

Journalism writes lines on the healthiest countenance. Esther looked at him disapprovingly; she had the woman's artistic instinct, if not the artist's, and Raphael, with his damp overcoat, everlastingly crumpled at the collar, was not an aesthetic object.

Whether in her pretty moods or her plain, Esther was always neat and dainty. There was a bit of ruffled lace at her throat, and the heliotrope of her gown contrasted agreeably with the dark skin of the vivid face.

'Do take off your overcoat and dry yourself at the fire,' she said.

While he was disposing of it, she poked the fire into a big cheerful blaze, seating herself opposite him in a capacious arm-chair, where the flame picked her out in bright tints upon the dusky background of the great dim room.

'And how is the _Flag of Judah_?' she said.

'Still waving,' he replied. 'It is about that that I have come.'

'About that?' she said wonderingly. 'Oh, I see; you want to know if the one person it is written at has read it. Well, make your mind easy. I have. I have read it religiously--no, I don't mean that--yes, I do; it's the appropriate word.'

'Really?'

He tried to penetrate behind the bantering tone.

'Yes, really. You put your side of the case eloquently and well. I look forward to Friday with interest. I hope the paper is selling.'

'So, so,' he said. 'It is uphill work. The Jewish public look on journalism as a branch of philanthropy, I fear, and Sidney suggests publis.h.i.+ng our free list as a Jewish directory.'

She smiled.

'Mr. Graham is very amusing. Only he is too well aware of it. He has been here once since that dinner, and we discussed you. He says he can't understand how you came to be a cousin of his--even a second cousin. He says he is _l'homme qui rit_, and you are _l'homme qui prie_.'

'He has let that off on me already, supplemented by the explanation that every extensive Jewish family embraces a genius and a lunatic. He admits that he is the genius. The unfortunate part for me,' ended Raphael, laughing, 'is that he _is_ a genius.'

'I saw two of his little things the other day at the Impressionist Exhibition in Piccadilly. They are very clever and das.h.i.+ng.'

'I am told he draws ballet-girls,' said Raphael moodily.

'Yes; he is a disciple of Degas.'

'You don't like that style of art?' he said, a shade of concern in his voice.

'I do not,' said Esther emphatically. 'I am a curious mixture. In art I have discovered in myself two conflicting tastes, and neither is for the modern realism, which I yet admire in literature. I like poetic pictures impregnated with vague romantic melancholy, and I like the white lucidity of cla.s.sic statuary. I suppose the one taste is the offspring of temperament, the other of thought; for intellectually I admire the Greek ideals, and was glad to hear you correct Sidney's perversion of the adjective. I wonder,' she added reflectively, 'if one can wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds of the Greeks without believing in them.'

'But you wouldn't make a cult of Beauty?'

'Not if you take Beauty in the narrow sense in which I should fancy your cousin uses the word. But, in a higher and broader sense, is it not the one fine thing in life which is a certainty, the one ideal which is not illusion?'