Part 8 (1/2)

'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the subject.'

'A crank? About Jews?'

'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are responsible for the war--and that they leave the fighting to the English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not treated as we should be, considering----'

Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that, when you yourself--when you saved his----'

'Well, I suppose just because he knows I _was_ fighting, he doesn't think of me as a Jew. It's a bit illogical, I know.' And he smiled ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'

'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a property desk.

'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help him into the saddle.'

'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to the war?' she persisted. 'Why, the paper had all their photographs!'

'What paper?' said Simon, laughing. 'Do you suppose he reads the Jewish what's-a-name, like you? Why, he's never heard of it!'

'Then you ought to show him a copy.'

'Oh, mother!' and he laughed again. 'That would only prove to him there are too many Jews everywhere.'

A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn's hard-won content. But apparently it only shadowed her own horizon. Simon was as happily full of his Lucy as ever.

Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when Simon returned from Harrow earlier than his wont, and Hannah's dog-like eye noted that the cloud had at last reached his brow.

'You have had a quarrel?' she cried.

'Only with the old boy.'

'But what about?'

'The old driveller has just joined some League of Londoners for the suppression of the immigrant alien.'

'But you should have told him we all agree there should be decentralization,' said Mrs. Cohn, quoting her favourite Jewish organ.

'It isn't that--it's the old fellow's vanity that's hurt. You see, he composed the ”Appeal to the Briton,” and gloated over it so conceitedly that I couldn't help pointing out the horrible contradictions.'

'But Lucy----' his mother began anxiously.

'Lucy's a brick. I don't know what my life would have been without the little darling. But listen, mother.' And he drew out a portentous prospectus. 'They say aliens should not be admitted unless they produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath they accuse them of taking the work away from the British workman. Now this isn't a Jewish question, and I didn't raise it as such--just a piece of muddle--and even as an Englishman I can't see how we can exclude Outlanders here after fighting for the Outland----'

'But Lucy----' his mother interrupted.

His vehement self-a.s.sertion pa.s.sed into an affectionate smile.

'Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows the old boy's vanity.

Of course she couldn't side with me openly.'

'But what will happen? Will you go there again?'