Part 97 (1/2)

Why should he disturb her anew?

”Ah, well, I'm glad you allow me a little goodness,” she said sarcastically. ”It is quite evident how you have drifted from orthodoxy.

Strange result of _The Flag of Judah_! Started to convert me, it has ended by alienating you--its editor--from the true faith. Oh, the irony of circ.u.mstance! But don't look so glum. It has fulfilled its mission all the same; it _has_ converted me--I will confess it to you.” Her face grew grave, her tones earnest ”So I haven't an atom of sympathy with your broader att.i.tude. I am full of longing for the old impossible Judaism.”

His face took on a look of anxious solicitude. He was uncertain whether she spoke ironically or seriously. Only one thing was certain--that she was slipping from him again. She seemed so complex, paradoxical, elusive--and yet growing every moment more dear and desirable.

”Where are you living?” he asked abruptly. ”It doesn't matter where,”

she answered. ”I sail for America in three weeks.”

The world seemed suddenly empty. It was hopeless, then--she was almost in his grasp, yet he could not hold her. Some greater force was sweeping her into strange alien solitudes. A storm of protest raged in his heart--all he had meant to say to her rose to his lips, but he only said, ”Must you go?”

”I must. My little sister marries. I have timed my visit so as to arrive just for the wedding--like a fairy G.o.dmother.” She smiled wistfully.

”Then you will live with your people, I suppose?”

”I suppose so. I dare say I shall become quite good again. Ah, your new Judaisms will never appeal like the old, with all its imperfections.

They will never keep the race together through s.h.i.+ne and shade as that did. They do but stave off the inevitable dissolution. It is beautiful--that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the Messiah who even to you, I dare say, is a mere symbol.” Again the wistful look lit up her eyes. ”That's what you rich people will never understand--it doesn't seem to go with dinners in seven courses, somehow.”

”Oh, but I do understand,” he protested. ”It's what I told Strelitski, who is all for intellect in religion. He is going to America, too,” he said, with a sudden pang of jealous apprehension.

”On a holiday?”

”No; he is going to resign his ministry here.”

”What! Has he got a better offer from America?”

”Still so cruel to him,” he said reprovingly. ”He is resigning for conscience' sake.”

”After all these years?” she queried sarcastically.

”Miss Ansell, you wrong him! He was not happy in his position. You were right so far. But he cannot endure his shackles any longer. And it is you who have inspired him to break them.”

”I?” she exclaimed, startled.

”Yes, I told him why you had left Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's--it seemed to act like an electrical stimulus. Then and there he made me write a paragraph announcing his resignation. It will appear to-morrow.”

Esther's eyes filled with soft light. She walked on in silence; then, noticing she had automatically walked too much in the direction of her place of concealment, she came to an abrupt stop.

”We must part here,” she said. ”If I ever come across my old shepherd in America, I will be nicer to him. It is really quite heroic of him--you must have exaggerated my own petty sacrifice alarmingly if it really supplied him with inspiration. What is he going to do in America?”

”To preach a universal Judaism. He is a born idealist; his ideas have always such a magnificent sweep. Years ago he wanted all the Jews to return to Palestine.”

Esther smiled faintly, not at Strelitski, but at Raphael's calling another man an idealist. She had never yet done justice to the strain of common-sense that saved him from being a great man; he and the new Strelitski were of one breed to her.

”He will make Jews no happier and Christians no wiser,” she said sceptically. ”The great populations will sweep on, as little affected by the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on itself--rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit.

We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism--old or new--is a forlorn hope.”

”The forlorn hope will yet save the world,” he answered quietly, ”but it has first to be saved to the world.”

”Be happy in your hope,” she said gently. ”Good-bye.” She held out her little hand. He had no option but to take it.