Part 71 (1/2)
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 looks 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 ideas, 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?”
”Nothing is illusion,” said Raphael, earnestly. ”At least, not in your sense. Why should the Creator deceive us?”
”Oh well, don't let us get into metaphysics. We argue from different platforms,” she said. ”Tell me what you really came about in connection with the _Flag_.”
”Mr. Goldsmith was kind enough to suggest that you might write for it.”
”What!” exclaimed Esther, sitting upright in her arm-chair. ”I? I write for an orthodox paper?”
”Yes, why not?”
”Do you mean I'm to take part in my own conversion?”
”The paper is not entirely religious,” he reminded her.
”No, there are the advertis.e.m.e.nts.” she said slily.
”Pardon me,” he said. ”We don't insert any advertis.e.m.e.nts contrary to the principles of orthodoxy. Not that we are much tempted.”
”You advertise soap,” she murmured.