Children of the Ghetto

dust philanthropist, sitting poring over stupid manuscripts when you ought to be in the country enjoying the sunshine.' She spoke in airy accents, with an undercurrent of astonishment at her attack of high spirits on an occasion she had designed to be harrowing.

'Why, I haven't looked at your manuscript yet,' he retorted gaily, but as he spoke there flashed upon him a delectable vision of blue sea and waving pines with one fair wood-nymph flitting through the trees, luring him on from this musty cell of never-ending work to unknown ecstasies of youth and joyousness. The leafy avenues were bathed in sacred sunlight, and a low magic music thrilled through the quiet air. It was but the dream of a second-the dingy walls closed round him again, the great ugly steamer, that never went anywhere, sailed on. But the wood-nymph did not vanish; the sunbeam was still on the editorial chair, lighting up the little face with a celestial halo. And when she spoke again, it was as if the music that filled the visionary glades was a reality, too.

'It's all very well your treating reproof as a jest,' she said, more gravely. 'Can't you see that it's false economy to risk a break-down even if you use yourself purely for others? You're looking far from well. You are overtaxing human strength. Come now, admit my sermon is just. Remember I speak not as a Pharisee, but as one who made the mistake herself-a fellow-sinner.' She turned her dark eyes reproachfully upon him.

'I-I-don't sleep very well,' he admitted, 'but otherwise I assure you I feel all right.'

It was the second time she had manifested concern for his health. The blood coursed deliciously in his veins; a thrill ran through his whole form. The gentle anxious face seemed to grow angelic. Could she really care if his health gave way? Again he felt a rash of self-pity that filled his eyes with tears. He was grateful to her for sharing his sense of the empty cheerlessness of his existence. He wondered why it had seemed so full and cheery just before.

'And you used to sleep so well,' said Esther, slily, remembering Addie's domestic revelations. 'My stupid manuscript should come in useful.'

'Oh, forgive my stupid joke!' he said remorsefully.

'Forgive mine!' she answered. 'Sleeplessness is too terrible to joke about. Again I speak as one who knows.'

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that!' he said, his egoistic tenderness instantly transformed to compassionate solicitude.

'Never mind me; I am a woman and can take care of myself. Why don't you go over to Norway and join Mr. Graham?'

'That's quite out of the question,' he said, puffing furiously at his pipe. 'I can't leave the paper.'

'Oh, men always say that. Haven't you let your pipe go out? I don't see any smoke.'

He started and laughed. 'Yes, there's no more tobacco in it.' He laid it down.

'No, I insist on your going on or else I shall feel uncomfortable. Where's your pouch?'

He felt all over his pockets. 'It must be on the table.'

She rummaged among the mass of papers. 'Ha! There are your scissors'' she said scornfully, turning them up. She found the pouch in time and handed it to him. 'I ought to have the management of this office for a day,' she remarked again.

'Well, fill my pipe for me,' he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill.

'Now you must crown your work,' he said. 'The matches are somewhere about.'

She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire.

'They're safety matches, I think,' he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe.

'But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to see Hamlet in lieu of the night you disappointed us.'

'Disappointed myself, you mean,' he said with a retrospective consciousness of folly. 'No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short.'

'Then, why waste it?'

'Oh come, I can't admit I waste it,' he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. 'You mustn't take such material views of life.' Almost in a whisper he quoted: 'To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added,' and went on: 'Socialism is at least as important as Shakspeare.'

'Socialism,' she repeated. 'Are you a Socialist, then?'

'Of a kind,' he answered. 'Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings; land nationalization and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses.'

'What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?'

'It requires no seeking.'

'Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found every thing in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or at least I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it.'

'I hope so,' he said gravely. 'But have you Socialistic sympathies?'

She hesitated. As a girl she had felt the crude Socialism which is the unreasoned instinct of ambitious poverty, the individual revolt mistaking itself for hatred of the general injustice. When the higher sphere has welcomed the Socialist, he sees he was but the exception to a contented class. Esther had gone through the second phase and was in the throes of the third, to which only the few attain.

'I used to be a red-hot Socialist once,' she said. 'To-day I doubt whether too much stress is not laid on material conditions. High thinking is compatible with the plainest living. 'The soul is its own place and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' Let the people who wish to build themselves lordly treasure-houses do so, if they can afford it, but let us not degrade our ideals by envying them.'

The conversation had drifted into seriousness. Raphael's thoughts reverted to their normal intellectual cast, but he still watched with pleasure the play of her mobile features as she expounded her opinions.

'Ah, yes, that is a nice abstract theory,' he said. 'But what if the mechanism of competitive society works so that thousands don't even get the plainest living? You should just see the sights I have seen, then you would understand why for some time the improvement of the material condition of the masses must be the great problem. Of course, you won't suspect me of underrating the moral and religious considerations.'

Esther smiled almost Imperceptibly. The idea of Raphael, who could not see two inches before his nose, telling her to examine the spectacle of human misery would have been distinctly amusing, even if her early life had been passed among the same scenes as his. It seemed a part of the irony of things and the paradox of fate that Raphael, who had never known cold or hunger, should be so keenly sensitive to the sufferings of others, while she who had known both had come to regard them with philosophical tolerance. Perhaps she was destined ere long to renew her acquaintance with them. Well, that would test her theories at any rate.

'Who is taking material views of life now?' she asked.

'It is by perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law that the kingdom of God is to be brought about on earth,' he answered. 'And in spirit, orthodox Judaism is undoubtedly akin to Socialism.' His enthusiasm set him pacing the room as usual, his arms working like the sails of a windmill.

Esther shook her head. 'Well, give me Shakspeare,' she said. 'I had rather see Hamlet than a world of perfect prigs.' She laughed at the oddity of her own comparison and added, still smiling: 'Once upon a time I used to think Shakspeare a fraud. But that was merely because he was an institution. It is a real treat to find one superstition that will stand analysis.'

'Perhaps you will find the Bible turn out like that,' he said hopefully.

'I have found it. Within the last few months I have read it right through again-Old