 1. This is my beloved son. Ruben Sacks was the pride of his family. After a highly successful career at one of the great London day-schools, he had gone up on a scholarship to the university, where, if indeed he had chosen to turn aside from the beaten paths of academic distinction, he had made good use of his time in more ways than one. The fact that he was a Jew had proved no bar to his popularity. He had gained many desirable friends and had, to some extent, shaken off the provincialism inevitable to one born and bred in the Jewish community. At the bar to which in due course he was called, his good fortune did not desert him. Before he was twenty-five, he had begun to be spoken of as rising, and at twenty-six, by unsuccessfully contesting a hard-fought election, had attracted to himself attention of another sort. He had no objection, he said, to the wool-sack, but a career of political distinction was growing slowly but surely to be his leading aim in life. He will never starve," said his mother, shrugging her shoulders with a comfortable consciousness of safe investments, and he must marry money, but Ruben can be trusted to do nothing rash. In the midst of so much that was highly promising, his health had broken down suddenly, and he had gone off grumbling to the antipodes. It was a case of overwork, of overstrain, of nervous breakdown," said the doctors. No doubt a sea voyage would set him up right again, but he must be careful of himself in the future. "'More than half my nervous patients are recruited from the ranks of the Jews,' said the great physician whom Ruben consulted, "'You'll pay the penalty of too high a civilisation.'" "'On the other hand,' Ruben answered, "'we never die, so we may be said to have our compensations.' Ruben's father had not borne out his son's theory. He had died many years before my story opens, greatly to his own surprise, and that of a family which could boast more than one non-agenarian in a generation. He had left his wife and children well provided for, and the house in Lancaster Gate was rich in material comfort. In the drawing-room of this house Mrs. Sax and her daughter were sitting on the day of Ruben's return from his six-months absence. He had arrived early in the day, and was now sleeping off the effects of a night past in travelling, and of the plentiful supply of fatted calf with which he had been welcomed. His devoted womankind, meanwhile, sipped their tea in the fading light of the September afternoon, and talked over the event of the day in the rapid, nervous tones peculiar to them. Mrs. Sax was an elderly woman, stout and short, with a wide, sallow-impassive face, lighted up by occasional gleams of shrewdness from a pair of half-shut eyes. An indescribable air of intense but subdued vitality characterised her presence. She did not appear in good health, but you saw at a glance that this was an old lady whom it would be difficult to kill. He looks better, Addy. He looks very well indeed," she said, the dull red spot of colour, on either sallow cheek alone testifying to her excitement. "'I've said all along,' answered her daughter, that if Ruben had been a poor man, the doctors would never have found out that he wanted a sea voyage after all. Let us only hope that it has done him no harm professionally.' She emptied her teacup, as she spoke, and cut herself a fresh slice of the rich cake, which she was devouring with nervous veracity. Adeline Sax, or to give her her right a title, Mrs. Montague Cohen, was a thin, dark young woman of eight or nine and twenty, with a restless, eagle-sallow face, and an abrupt manor. She was richly and very fashionably dressed, in an unbecoming gown of green-shot silk, and wore big diamond solitaires in her ears. She and her mother, indeed, were never seen without such jewels, which seemed to bear the same relation to their owners as his pigtail does to the Chinaman. Adelaide was the eldest of the family. She had married young a husband chosen for her, with whom she lived with average contentment. Adeline was scarcely two years her junior. No one cared to remember the age of Lionel, the youngest of the three, a hopeless ne'er-do-well, who had with difficulty been relegated to an obscure colony. There's always either a ne'er-do-well or an idiot in every Jewish family. Esther Coenthal had remarked in one of her appalling bursts of candour. The mother and daughter sat there in the growing dusk, amid the plush Ottomans, lamped velvet tables, and other Philistine splendours of the large drawing-room. To the lamp-lighter came down the base-water-road, and the gilt clock on the mantelpiece struck six. Almost at the same moment the door was flung open, and a voice cried, "'Why do women invariably sit in the dark?' It was a pleasant voice, to a fine ear unmistakably the voice of a Jew, though the accents of the speaker were free from the cockney twang which marred the speech of the two women. "'Rubin, I thought you were asleep,' cried his mother. "'So I was. Now I have arisen like a giant refreshed.' A man of middle height and slender build had made his way across the room to the window. His face was indistinct in the darkness as he stopped and put his arm caressingly about the broad fat shoulder of his mother. "'Dressed for dinner already, Rubin,' was all she said, though the hard eye under the cautious old eyelid grew soft as she spoke. Her love for this son and her pride in him were the passion of her life. "'Dinner? You're never going to kill the fattened calf twice over. But seriously, I must run down to the club for an hour or two. There may be letters.' He hesitated a moment, then added, "'I shall look in at the laninges on my way back.' "'The laninges?' cried Adelaide in open disapproval. "'Rubin, there's the old gentleman. He won't like your going first to your cousins,' said his mother. "'My grandfather?' "'Oh! But my arrival isn't an official fact till to-morrow. We were sixteen hours before our time, remember. Goodbye, Adi. I suppose you and Monty will be dining in important place to-morrow with the rest of us. What a gathering of the clans! Well, I must be off.' And he suited the action to the word. "'What on earth need he rush off like that to the laninges?' said Mrs. Cowan, as she drew on her gloves. Her mother looked across at her through the dusk. "'Rubin will do nothing rash,' she said. End of chapter one. Chapter two. Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly—London lyrics. Rubin Sacks stepped into the twilight street with a distinct sense of exhilaration. He was back again, back to the old, full, strenuous life which was so dear to him, to the din and rush and struggle of the London which he loved with a passion that had something of poetry in it. With the eager curiosity, the vivid interest in life which underlay his rather impassive bearing, it was impossible that foreign travel should be without charm for him, but he returned with unmixed delight to his own haunts, to the work and the play, the marketplace and the greetings in the marketplace, to the innumerable pleasantnesses of an existence which owed something of its pecancy to the fact that it was led partly in the democratic atmosphere of modern London, partly in the conservative precincts of the Jewish community. Now as he lingered a moment on the pavement, looking up and down the road for a handsome, the light from the street lamp fell full upon him, revealing what the darkness of his mother's drawing-room had previously hidden from sight. He was, as I have said, of middle height and slender build. He wore good clothes, but they could not disguise the fact that his figure was bad and his movements awkward, unmistakably the figure and movements of a Jew. And his features, without presenting any marked national trait, bespoke no less clearly his Semitic origin. His complexion was of a dark pallor, the hair, small moustache and eyes, dark with red lights in them. Over these last the lids were drooping, and the whole face wore for the moment a relaxed, dreamy, impassive air, curiously eastern and not wholly free from melancholy. He walked slowly in the direction of an advancing handsome, hailed it quickly and quietly, and had himself driven off to pal mal. To every movement of the man clung that indescribable suggestion of an irrepressible vitality which was the leading characteristic of his mother. There were several letters for him at the club. Having discussed them, and having been greeted by a half a dozen men of his acquaintance, he dined lightly off a chop and a glass of claret, and gave himself up to what was apparently an exceedingly pleasant reverie. The club where he sat was not, as he himself would have been the first to acknowledge in the front rank of such institutions, but it was respectable and had its advantages. As for its drawbacks, supported by his sense of better things to come, Ruben Sachs could tolerate them. It was nearly half past eight when Ruben's cab drew up before the Lunninger's house in Kensington Palace Gardens, where a blaze of light from the lower windows told him that he had come on no vein errant. Israel Lunninger had begun life as a clerk on the stock exchange, where he had been fortunate enough to find employment in the great broken firm of Sachs and Co. There his undeniable business talents and devotion to his work had met with ample reward. He had advanced from one confidential post to another, after a successful speculation on his own account had been admitted into partnership, and finally, like the industrious apprentice of the storybooks, had married his master's daughter. In these days the reins of government in Capel Court had fallen almost entirely into his hands. Solomon Sachs, though a wonderful man of his years, was too old for regular attendance in the city, while poor Co. and Thal, the other member of the firm, and like Lunninger, son-in-law to old Solomon, had been shut up in a madhouse for the last ten years and more. As Ruben advanced into the large, heavily upholstered vestibule, one of the many surrounding doors opened slowly, and a woman emerged with a vague, uncertain movement into the light. She might have been fifty years of age, perhaps more, perhaps less. Her figure was slim as a girl's, but the dark hair uncovered by a cap was largely mixed with grey. The long oval face was of a deep, unwholesome, sallow tinge, and from its haggard gloom looked out two dark, restless, miserable eyes, the eyes of a creature in pain. Her dress was rich but carelessly worn, and about her whole person was an air of neglect. "'Aunt Ada!' cried Ruben, going forward. She rubbed her lean, sallow hands together, saying in low, broken, lifeless tones. "'We didn't expect you till to-morrow, Ruben. I hope your health has improved.' This was quite a long speech for Mrs. Lunninger, who was of a monosyllabic habit. Before Ruben could reply, the door opposite the one from which his aunt had emerged was flung open, and two little boys dressed in sailor suits rushed into the hall. One was dark, with bright black eyes. The other had a shock of flame-coloured hair and pale, prominent eyes. "'Ruben!' they cried in astonishment, and rushed upon their cousin. "'Linel!' Sidney protested their mother faintly as the boys proceeded to take all sorts of liberties with the new arrival. The door by which they had come, opened again, and a man's voice cried, half in fun, "'Why on earth are you youngsters making this confounded row? Be off to bed, or you'll be sorry for it!' Ruben was standing under the light of a lamp. A smile on his face as he lifted little red-haired Sidney from the ground, and held him suspended by his wide sailor-collar. "'It's Ruben! Old Ruben come back!' cried the children. An exclamation followed. The door was flung wide open. Ruben sat down the child with a laugh, and passed into the lighted room. CHAPTER III. How should love, whom the cross-lightings of four chance-met eyes flashed into fiery life from nothing, follow such dear familiarities of dawn, seldom, but when he does, master of all. ELMA'S FIELD. The Lonninger's drawing-room, in which Ruben now found himself, was a spacious apartment, hung with primrose-coloured satin, furnished throughout in impeccable Louis XV, and lighted with incandescent gas from innumerable chandeliers and sconces. Beyond, a divided by a plush-straped alcove, was a room of smaller size where, at present, could be discerned the intent, semitic faces of some half-dozen card-players. In the front room, four or five young people in evening dress were grouped, but at Ruben's entrance they all came forward with various exclamations of greeting. Thought you weren't coming back till to-morrow? I shouldn't have known you, you're as brown as a berry. See the conquering hero comes! This last from Rose Lonninger, a fat girl of twenty, in a tight-fitting blue silk dress, with the red hair and light eyes, a fleur-de-tête of her little brother. I'm awfully glad to see you looking so well," added Leopold Lonninger, the owner of the voice. He was a short, slight person of one or two and twenty, with a picturesque head of markedly tribal character. The dark, oval face, bright and melancholy eyes, alternately dreamy and shrewd, the charming, humorous smile with its flash of white even teeth, might have belonged to some poet or musician, instead of to the son of a successful Jewish stockbroker. By his side stood a small, dark, gnome-like creature, apparently entirely overpowered by the rich, untidy garments she was wearing. She was a girl or woman whose age it would be difficult to determine, with small, glittering eyes that outshone the diamonds in her ears. Her trailing gown of heavy, flowered brocade was made with an attempted picturesqueness, an intention which was further evidenced by the studded untidiness of the tousled hair and by the thick strings of amber coiled round the lean brown neck. This was Esther Konethal, the only child of poor Konethal, and according to her own account the biggest heiress and the ugliest woman in all Bayswater. Coming up awkwardly behind her came Ernest Lunninger, the eldest son of the house, of whom it would be unfair to say that he was an idiot. He was nervous, delicate, and had a rooted aversion to society, and was obliged by his state of health to spend the greater part of his time in the country. Esther used to shrug her shoulders and smile shrewdly and unpleasantly, whenever this description of what she chose to consider the family's skeleton was given out in her hearing. She told everyone, quite frankly, that her own father was in a mad house. Judith Quijano came up a little behind the others with a hesitation in her manner which was new to her and of which she herself was unconscious. She was twenty-two years of age, in the very prime of her youth and beauty. A tall, regal-looking creature with an exquisite dark head, features like those of a face cut on jam or cameo, and wonderful, lustrous, mournful eyes entirely out of keeping with the accepted characteristics of their owner. Her smooth oval cheek glowed with a rich yet subdued hue of perfect health, and her tight-fitting fashionable white evening dress showed to advantage the generous lines of a figure which was distinguished for stateliness rather than grace. Ruben Sacks had looked straight at this girl on entering the room, but he shook hands with her last of all, clasping her fingers closely and searching her face with his eyes. They were not cousins, her relationship to the Leningers coming from the father's side, but there had always been between them a fiction of cousinship which had made possible what is rare the world over, but rarer than ever in the Jewish community, an intimacy between young people of opposite sexes. I thought I had better come while I could. We were before our time," said Ruben as they sat down, the whole party of them grouped close together, with the exception of Ernest, who returned to his solitaire board, a plaything which afforded him perpetual occupation. After several years of practice he had never arrived at leaving the glass marble in solitary state on the board, but he lived in hopes. While you could, before, in fact, fashion had again claimed Mr. Ruben Sacks for her own, cried Esther. I don't know about fashion, answered Ruben with perfect good temper. Esther was Esther, and if you began to mind what she said you would never know where to stop. But there are a hundred things to be attended to, I suppose everyone is going to grandpater's feed tomorrow. Everyone was going. Then, turning to Leo, Ruben said, when do you go up? Not till October 14th. Leopold Lanninger was on the eve of his third year at Cambridge. What have you been doing this long? Oh, staying about. Leo has been stopping with Lord Norwood, but we are not allowed to mention it, cried Rose in her loud penetrating voice, in case it should seem that we are proud. Leo, who was passing through a sensitive phase of his growth, winced visibly, and Ruben said in a matter-of-fact way, Oh, by the by, I came across a cousin of Lord Norwood's abroad, Lee Harrison, a curious fellow, but a good fellow. A howling swell, added Esther, with a double-barrelled name. Exactly, but the point about him is that he has gone over body and soul to the Jewish community. There was an ironic exclamation all round. The Jews, the most clannish and exclusive of peoples, the most keen to resent outside criticism, can say hard things of one another within the walls of the ghetto. He says himself, went on Ruben, that he has a taste for religion, I believe he flirted with the Holy Mother for some years, but didn't get caught. Then he joined a set of mystics, and lived for three months on a mountain, somewhere in Asia Minor. Now he has come round to thinking Judaism, the one religion, that has been regularly received into the synagogue. And expects no doubt, said Esther, to be rejoiced over as the one sinner that repenteth. I hope you didn't shatter his illusions by telling him that he would more likely be considered a fool for his pains. Ruben laughed, and with an amused expression on his now animated face, went on. He has a seat in Barclay Street, and a brand new talith, but still he is not happy. He complains that the Jews he meets in society are unsatisfactory. They have no local color. I said I thought I could promise him a little local color. I hope to have the pleasure of introducing him to you all. They all laughed, with the exception of Rose, who said rather offended. I don't know about local color. We don't wear turbans. Ruben put back his head, laughing a little, and seeking Judith's eyes for the answering smile he knew he should find there. He had been keeping rather in the background tonight, quietly but intensively happy. Ruben was back again. How delightfully familiar was every tone, every inflection of his voice. And how well she knew the changes of his face. The heavy dreaminess, the imperturbable air of eastern gravity, then low, the lifting of the mask, the flash and play of kindling features, the fire of speaking eyes, the hundred lights and shades of expression that she could so well interpret. What do his people say to it all? asked Leo. Lee Harrison's? Oh, I believe they take it very sensibly. They say it's only Bertie. Answered Ruben, rising and holding out his hand to his uncle, who sauntered him from the card-room. He was a short, stout, red-headed man, closely resembling his daughter, and at the present moment looked annoyed. The play was high, and he had been losing heavily. Let's have some music, Leo. He said, flinging himself into an arm-chair at some distance from the young people. Rose, who was a skilled musician, went over to the piano, and Leopold took out his violin from its case. Ruben moved closer to Judith, and under cover of the violin tuning, they exchanged a few words. I can't tell you how glad I am to get back. You look all the better for your trip, but you must take care and not overdo it again. It's bad policy. It's almost impossible not to. But those committees and meetings and things, she smiled. Surely they might be cut down. They are often very useful indirectly to a man in my position, answered Ruben, who had no intention of saying anything cynical. There was a good deal of genuine benevolence in his nature, and an almost insatiable energy. He took naturally to the modern forms of philanthropy, the committees, the classes, the concerts, and meetings. He found indeed that they had their uses both social and political. Higher motives for attending them were not wanting, and he liked them for their own sake besides. Outdoor sports he detested. The pleasures of dancing he had exhausted long ago. The practice of philanthropy provided a vent for his many-sided energies. The tuning had come to an end by now, and the musicians had taken up their position. Immediately silence fell upon the little audience, broken only by the click of counters, the crackle of a bank note in the room beyond, and the sound of earnest solitaire balls as they dropped into their holes. Mrs. Leninger, at the first notes of the tuning, had stolen in and taken up a position near the door. Esther had moved to a further corner of the room where she lay buried in a deep lounge. Then, all at once, the music broke forth. The great vulgar, over-decorated room with its garish lights, its stifling fumes of gas, was filled with the sound of dreams. And over the keen faces stole, like a softening mist, a faraway air of dreamy sensuousness. The long, delicate hands of the violinist, the dusky, sensitive face as he bent lovingly over the instrument, seemed to vibrate with the strings over which he had such mastery. The voice of a troubled soul cried out to-night in Leo's music, whose accents, even the hard brilliance of his accompanist, failed to drown. As the bow was drawn across the strings for the last time, earnest solitaire board fell to the ground with a crash, the little balls of Venetian glass rolling audibly in every direction. The spell was broken. Every one rose and the card-players, who by this time were hungry, came strolling in from the other room. Reuben found himself the centre of much handshaking and congratulation on his improved appearance. He was popular with his relatives, enjoying his popularity and accepting it gracefully. No airs like that stuck up Leo, the aunts and uncles used to say. There's a spread in the dining-room, won't you stay? said Rose, as Reuben held out his hand in farewell. Not to-night. He turned last of all to Judith, who stood there silent with smiling eyes. Tomorrow, in Portland Place, he said, clasping a hand with lingering fingers. As he walked home in the warm September night, he had for once neither ears nor eyes for the city pageant so dear to him. He heard and saw nothing but the sound of Leo's violin and the face of Judith Quirano. Judith Quirano had lived with the Leningers ever since she was fifteen years old. Her mother, Israel Leninger's sister, had been thought to do very well for himself when she married Joshua Quirano, who came from a family of Portuguese merchants, the Vier Noblesse, of the Jewish community. That was before the days of Leninger's prosperity. Now here, as everywhere, the prestige of birth had dwindled, that of money had increased. The Quirhanos were a large family, and they had grown poorer with the years. Very gratefully did they welcome the offer of the rich uncle to adopt their eldest daughter. So Judith had been born away from the little crowded house in a dreary region, lying somewhere between Westbourne Park, and made avail to the splendours of Kensington Palace Gardens. Here she had shared everything with her cousin Rose. The French and German governesses, the expensive music lessons, the useless, pretentious finishing lessons from innumerable masters. Later on the girls, who were about of an age, had gone together into such society as they're set afforded, and here again no difference had been made between them. The gowns and bonnets of Rose were neither more splendid, nor more abundant than those of her poor relation, nor her invitations to parties more numerous. Rose, it is true, had a fortune of fifty thousand pounds, but it was a matter of common knowledge that her uncle would settle five thousand on Judith when she married. The cousins were good friends after a fashion. Rose was a materialist to her fingers' ends. She was lacking in the finer feelings, perhaps even in the finer honesties. But, on the other hand, she was easy to live with, good tempered, good natured, high-spirited, qualities which cover a multitude of sins. It would be seen that in their own fashion, and according to their own lights, the Lunges had been very kind to Judith. She had no ground for complaint, nor indeed was there anything but gratitude in her thoughts of them. If at times she was discontented, she was only vaguely aware of her own discontent. To rail at fate, to cry out against the gods, were amusements she left to such people as Esther and Leo, for whom, in her quiet way, she had considerable contempt. But the life, the position, the atmosphere, though she knew it not, were repressive ones. This woman, with her beauty, her intelligence, her power of feeling, saw herself merely as one of a vast crowd of girls awaiting their promotion by marriage. She had, it is true, the advantage of good looks. On the other hand, she was comparatively speaking portionless, and the marriageable Jew, as Esther was fond of saying, was even rarer and shyer than the marriageable Gentile. To marry a Gentile would have been quite out of the question for her. Mr. Lunger, thoroughgoing pagan as he was, would have set his foot mercilessly on such an arrangement. It would not have seemed to him respectable. He was no stickler for forms and ceremonies, though while old Solomon lived a certain amount of observance of them was necessary, you need only marry a Jew and be buried at Wilson or Ball's pond, the rest would take care of itself. But her uncle's views apart, Judith's opportunities for uniting herself to an alien were small. The Lungers had, of course, their Gentile acquaintance, chiefly people of the sham, smart, pseudo-fashionable variety, whose part is at Bayswater or South Kensington they attended. But the business of their lives, its main interests, lay almost entirely within the tribal limits. It was as Hebrews of the Hebrews that Solomon sacks and his son-in-law took their stand. In the community, with its innumerable trivial class differences, its sets within sets, its fine-drawn distinctions of caste, utterly incomprehensible to an outsider, they held a good, though not the best position. They were as yet socially on their promotion. The Saxes and the Lungers in their elder branches troubled themselves as we have seen little enough about their relations to the outer world. But the younger members of the family, Ruben, Leo, even Adelaide, and Esther in her own crude fashion, showed symptoms of a desire to strike out from the tribal duck pond into the wider and deeper waters of society. Such symptoms, their position and training considered, were, of course, inevitable, and the elders looked on with pride and approval, not understanding, indeed, the full meaning of the change. But as for Judith Quejano and for many women placed as she, it is difficult to conceive a training, an existence more curiously limited, more completely provincial than hers. Her outlook on life was of the narrowest, of the world, of London, of society beyond her own set, it may be said that she had seen nothing at first hand, had looked at it all, not with her own eyes, but with the eyes of Ruben Saxe. She could scarcely remember the time when she and Ruben had not been friends. Ever since she was a little girl in the schoolroom, and he a charming lad in his first terms at the university, he had thought it worthwhile to talk to her, to confide to her his hopes, plans, and ambitions, to direct her reading and lend her books. Books were a luxury in the Leninger household. We all have our economies, even the richest of us, and the Leningers who begrudged no money for food, clothes, or furniture, who went constantly into the stalls of the theatre without considering the expense, regarded every shilling spent on books as pure extravagance. Ruben indeed was the only person who had any conception of Judith's possibilities, or of those surrounding her who even estimated at its full, her rich and stately beauty. Their friendship, unusual enough in a society which retains, in relation to women at least, so many traces of Orientalism had sprung up at first unnoticed in the intimacy of family life. It was not till the last year or two that it had attracted any serious attention. Adelaide Cohen openly did everything in her power to check it, and even misses Sacks with her rooted belief in her son's discretion, her conviction that he would never fail to act up to his creed of doing the very best for himself, grew anxious at times, and was almost glad of the chance which had sent him off to the antipodes. Allowed to her daughter, she scouted the notion of any serious cause for alarm. It is for the girl's sake, I am sorry. That sort of thing does a girl a great deal of harm. It is time she was married. She has no money. Very likely she won't marry at all, cried Adelaide, who was dyspepsic and subject to fits of bad temper. Meanwhile Judith, acquiescent, receptive, appreciative, took the good things this friendship offered her and shatterized the future, not as she believed that she ever for a moment deceived herself. That would scarcely have been possible in the atmosphere in which she breathed. She had known from the beginning how could she fail to know, that Rubin must do great things for himself in every relation of life, must ultimately climb to inaccessible heights where she could not hope to follow. Her pride and her humility went hand in hand, and she prided herself on her own good sense which made any mistake in the matter impossible. And that he was so sensible was what she particularly admired in Rubin. Leo was clever, she knew, and Esther, after a fashion, but these two people had an uncomfortable, eccentric, undignified method of setting about things from the way they did their hair upwards. But Rubin had sacrificed none of his dignity as a human being to his cleverness. He was eminently normal, though cleverer than any one she knew. For the long-haired type of man, the professional person of genius, this thoroughgoing Philistine, this conservative ingrain had no tolerance whatever. She never could understand the mania among some of the girls of her set, Rose Leninger included, for the second-rate actors, musicians, and professional reciters with whom they came into occasional contact at parties. She had, it is seen, distinct if unformulated notions as to the sanity of true genius. And she herself? She was so sensible, oh, she was thoroughly sensible, and matter of fact. Esther fell in love half a dozen times a season, loudly bewailing herself throughout. Even Rose was not without her a fair decor. But she, Judith, was utterly free from such sentimental aberrations. That was why perhaps a man like Rubin, who had not much opinion of women in general, considering them creatures easily snared, should find it possible to make a friend of her. She understood perfectly Adelaide's snubs, Mrs. Saxe's repressive attitude, Esther's clumsily veiled warnings. She understood, and was indignant. Did they think her such a fool, a person incapable of friendship with a man without misinterpretation of his motives? But Rubin knew that it was not so, and therein, of course, lay her strength in her consolation. It was this openly matter of fact attitude of hers which had not only added pecancy to his intercourse with her, but had made Rubin less careful with her than he would otherwise have been. He had no wish to hurt the girl, either as regarded her feelings or her prospects, nor was the danger he told himself a serious one. She liked him immensely, of course, but she was unsentimental, like most women of her race, and would settle down happily enough when the time came. He told himself these things were the secret, pleasant consciousness of a subtler element in their relationship, of unsounded depths in the nature of this girl who trusted him so completely, and whom he had so completely in hand. Nor did he hide from himself that she charmed him and pleased his tastes as no other woman had ever done. A man does not so easily deceive himself in these matters, and during the last year or two he had been fully aware of a quickening in his sentiments towards her. Yes, Rubin knew by now that he was in love with Judith Quijano. The situation was full of delights, of dangers, of pains, and pleasantnesses. A disturbing element in the serene course of his existence. It added a charm to existence of which he was in no haste to be rid. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Rubin Sax by Amy Levi Read by Adrian Pretzelis Il n'aime pas, je aime. Aime de beau Valmore Old Solomon Sax awaited his guests in the drawing-room of his house in Portland Place. It was the night after Rubin's arrival, in honour of which the feast was given. Such feasts were by no means rare events. The old man, liking to assemble his family, round him in true patriarchal fashion. As for the family, it always grumbled and always went. He was a short, sturdy-looking man with a flowing white beard, which added size to a head already out of all proportion to the rest of him. The enormous face was both powerful and shrewd. There was power, too, in the coarse square hands, in the square firmly planted feet. You saw, at a glance, that he was blessed with that fitness of which survival is the inevitable reward. He wore a skull-cap and, at the present moment, was pacing the room, performing what seemed to be an incantation in Hebrew below his breath. As a matter of fact, he was saying his prayers, an occupation which helped him to get rid of a great deal of his time, which hung heavily on his hands, now that age had disabled him from active service on the stock exchange. His daughter, Rebecca, a woman far advanced in middle age, stitched drearily at some fancy work by the fire. She was unmarried and hated the position, with the frank hatred of the woman of her race, for whom it is a particularly unenviable one. Ruben's mother, her daughter and son-in-law, were the first to arrive. Old Solomon shook hands with them, still continuing his muttered devotions, and they received in silence a greeting to which they were too much accustomed to consider in any way remarkable. Grandpa saying his prayers was an everyday phenomenon. Perhaps the younger members of the party remember that it had never been allowed to interfere with the production of cake. The generous slices had not been less welcome from the fact that they must be eaten without acknowledgment. Montague Cohen, Adelaide's sacks husband, belonged to that rapidly dwindling section of the community which attaches importance to the observation of the Mosaic and rabbinical laws in various minute points. He would have half-starved himself sooner than to eat meat-killed according to Gentile fashion, or leaven bread in the Passover week. Adelaide chafed at the restrictions imposed by this constant making clean of the outside of the cup and platter, but it was a point on which her husband, amenable in everything else, remained firm. He was an anemic young man, destitute of the more brilliant qualities of his race, with a rooted belief in himself and everything that belonged to him. He was proud of his house, his wife, and his children. He was proud, heaven knows why, of his personal appearance, his mental qualities, and his sex. This last to an even greater extent than most men of his race, with whom pride of sex is a characteristic quality. Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, who has not made me a woman. No prayer goes up from the synagogue with greater fervour than this. This fact notwithstanding, it must be acknowledged that, save in the one matter of religious observation, Montague Cohen was led by the noes by his wife, whose intelligence and vitality far exceeded his own. Born along in her wake, he passed his life in pursuit of a shadow which is called social advancement, going uncomplainingly over quagmires, into stony places, up and down uncomfortable declivities, following patiently and faithfully wherever the restless, energetic Adelaide led. Esther and her mother were the next to arrive. Mrs. Conthor was old Solomon's eldest child, a stout, dark, exuberant-looking woman, between whom and her daughter was waged a constant feud. The whole party of the Leningers, with the exception of Ernest, who never dined out, was not long in the following. Mrs. Leninger, dejected, monosyllabic, untidy as usual. Mr. Leninger, cheerful, pompous, important. Rose, loud-voiced, overdressed, good-tempered. Judith, blooming, stately, calm in her fashionable gown, which assorted oddly a close observer might have thought, with the exotic nature of her beauty. Leo dragged in mournfully in the rear of his party. He was in one of his worst moods. He hated these family gatherings, and had only been prevailed on with great difficulty to put in an appearance. We're all here, cried Adelaide, when greetings had been exchanged, with the exception of the hero, the feast, who has evidently, added Esther, a sense of dramatic propriety. Robyn is at his club, exclaimed Mrs. Sacks, looking under her eyelids at Judith, who had taken a seat opposite her. She admired the girl immensely, and, at the bottom of her heart, was fond of her. Judith, on her part, would have found it hard to define her feelings towards Mrs. Sacks. With Ruben she was always calm. In his mother's presence she was conscious of a strange agitation, of the stirrings of an emotion which was neither love nor hate nor fear, but which perhaps was compounded of all three. They had not long to wait before the door was thrown open and the person expected entered. He came straight across the room to Old Solomon, a vivifying presence, Ruben Sacks with his bad figure, awkward movements and charming face, which wore tonight its air of greatest alertness. The old man who had finished his prayers and taken off his cap greeted the newcomer with something like emotion. Solomon Sacks, if report be true, had been a hard man in his dealings with the world, never overstepping the line of legal honesty, but taking an advantage whenever he could do so with impunity. But to his own kindred, he had always been generous. The ties of race, of family, were strong in him. His love for his children had been the romance of an eminently own romantic career, and the death of his favourite son, Ruben's father, had been a grief whose marks he would bear to his own dying day. Something of the love of the father had been transferred to the son, and Ruben stood high in the old man's favour. The greatest subtlety of ambition, which had made him, while comparatively speaking, a poor man, prefer the chances of a professional career to the certainties of a good birth in Cappell Court, appealed to some kindred feeling, had set vibrating some responsive chord in his grandfather's breast. Such a personality as Ruben's seemed the crowning splendour of that structure of gold which it had been his life work to build up, a luxury only to be afforded by the rich. For poor Leo's attainments, his vile in playing, his classical scholarship, he had no respect whatever. They went down to dinner without ceremony, taking their places for the most part as chance directed. Ruben sitting next to old Solomon, on the side of his best ear, Judith at the far end of the table opposite. Conversation flagged, as it inevitably did at these family gatherings, until after the meal when crabbed with age and youth, separating by mutual consent, would grow loquacious enough in their respective circles. Ruben, his voice raised, but not raised too much, for his grandfather's benefit, recounted the main incidents of his recent travels, while doing ample justice to the excellent meal set before him. It might have been thought that he did not show to advantage under the circumstances, that his introduction of good names, and of his own familiarity with their bearers, was a little too frequent, too obtrusive, that altogether there was an unpleasant flavour of brag about the whole narration. Esther smiled meaningfully and lifted her shoulders. Leo frowned and winced perceptibly, his taste offended to nausea. There were times when the coarser strands woven into the bright wool of his cousin's personality affected him like a harsh sound or evil odour. But these two cavaliers apart Ruben understood his audience. Old Solomon listened attentively, nodding his great head from time to time with satisfaction. Mrs. Sacks, while apparently absorbed in her dinner, never lost a word of the beloved voice. Monty and Adelaide, who, when all is said, were naive creatures, were frankly impressed, and reveled in a sense of reflected glory. As for Judith, shall it be blamed her if she saw no fault? She sat there silent, now and then lifting her eyes off to the far corner of the table, where Ruben was divided between admiration and that unacknowledged sense of terror which came over her whenever the fact of Ruben's growing importance was brought home to her. Shall it be blamed her, I say, that she saw no fault? She, who, where others were concerned, had sense of humour and critical faculty enough? Shall it be blamed to her that she had a kindness for everything he said, and everything he did, that he was the king, and could do no wrong? Only once during the meal did their eyes meet, then she smiled quietly, almost imperceptibly, a smile for her alone. Mr. Lee Harrison, said Adelaide, stretching forward her sallow, eager, inquisitive face on either side of which the diamond shone like lamps, and plunging her dark ring-laden fingers into a dish of olives as she spoke, Mr. Lee Harrison was staying at her hotel one year at Pontresena. He was a high churchman in those days, and hardly knew a Jew from a Mohammedan. He is a cousin of Lord Norwood's, added Monty, who cultivated the acquaintance of the peerage through the pages of Truth. After several years' study of that periodical, he was beginning to feel on intimate terms with many of the distinguished people who figure weakly therein. A friend of yours, Leo, cried Adelaide, nodding across to her cousin. She had a great respect for the lad who affected the despised class' distinctions, but succeeded in getting himself invited to such good houses. I know, Lord Norwood, answered Leo with an impassive air that caused Reuben to smile under his moustache. He was at this year's academy private view. Don't you remember Monty with that sister of his, Lady Geraldine? Went on Adelaide, undisturbed. They are both often to be seen at Sandown, chimed in the faithful Monty, and at Kempton. The Montague-Coens, those two indefatigable peries at the gate, patronise art and never miss the private view. Patronise the turf, and at every race meeting, with any pretensions to smartness, were familiar figures. There was but a brief separation of the sexes at the end of dinner. The whole party, within a short space of time, adjourned to the ugly, old-fashioned splendours of the dining-room, where card-playing went on as usual. A game of wisp was got up among the elders for the benefit of old Solomon, the others preferring to embark upon the excitement of Polish bank, with the exception of Leo, who never played cards, and Judith, who was anxious to finish a piece of embroidery she was preparing for her mother's birthday. Rubin, who had dutifully offered himself as a wisp player, and had been cut out, lingered a few moments, divided between the expediency of challenging fortune at Polish bank, and the pleasantness of joining the girlish figure at the far end of the room. Adelaide, shuffling her cards with deft, accustomed fingers, looked up and read something of his indecision in her brother's face. There's a place here, Rubin, she called out, drawing her silken skirts from a chair onto which they had overflowed. She was not a person of tact. Her remark and the tone of it turned the balance. No thanks, said Rubin, dropping his lids and assuming his most imperturbable air. It was not his custom to single out Judith for his attentions at these family gatherings, but tonight some irresistible magnetism drew him towards her. It only wanted that little goad from Adelaide to send him deliberately to the ottoman where she sat at work, her beautiful head bent over the many-coloured embroidery. Leo, lounging discontentedly a few paces off with something of the air of a petulant child, who is ashamed of himself, twisted a bit of silk in his long brown fingers, and hummed the air of Ich Grohlenich below his breath. Judith, said Rubin, taking a seat very close beside her and looking straight at her face, poor Ronaldson, the member for St. Baldwin's, is dangerously ill. She looked up eagerly. Then you would be asked to stand? He smiled, partly at her readiness of comprehension, partly at the frank, feminine, light-heartedness which realises nothing beyond the circle of its own affections. You mustn't kill him off in that summery fashion, poor fellow. I meant, of course, if he should die. Under those circumstances I believe they will ask me to stand. That's the beauty of you, Judith, he added, half seriously, half jestingly. One never has to waste one's breath with needless explanation. She blushed and smiled naively the little compliment with its studied uncouthness. There was something incongruous in the girl's rich and stately beauty, in the deep, serious gaze of the wonderful eyes, the severe, almost tragic lines of the head and face, with her total lack of manner, her little, abrupt, simple air, her apparent utter unconsciousness of her own value and importance as a young and beautiful woman. Judith is not a woman of the world, certainly, Rubin had said on one occasion in reply to a criticism of his sisters. But neither is she a bad imitation of one. And Adelaide, sensing a brotherly sarcasm, had allowed the subject to drop. Leo, who had broken his bit of silk and hummed his song to the end, rose at this point and went from the room without a word. Leo is in one of his moods, said Judith, looking after him. I'm sure I don't know what is the matter with him. Rubin, who understood perhaps more of Leopold's state of mind than anyone suspected, had the struggles with himself. The revolt against his surroundings, which the land was undergoing, answered slowly. He's in a ticklish state of his growth. Horribly unpleasant, I grant you. But I like the boy, though he regards me at present as an incarnation of the seven deadly sins. You know he's very fond of you. That may be. All the same, he thinks I keep a golden calf in my bedroom for the purposes of devotion. Judith laughed, and Rubin, his face very close to hers, said, Can you keep a secret? You know best. Well, that boy is head over heels in love with Lord Norwood's sister. She looked up with her most matter-of-fact air. He will have to guess over that. Judith, cried Rubin, peaked, provoked, inflamed by her manner. I believe there isn't one grain of sentiment in your whole composition. Oh, I know it's a fine thing to be calm and cool, and have one self well in hand, but a woman is not always the worst for such a weakness as possessing a heart. There was a note in his voice new to her. A look in the brown depths of his eyes as they met hers, which she had never seen there before. It seemed to her that voice and eyes in treated her cried to her for mercy, that a wonderful answering emotion of pity stirred in her own breast. A moment they sat there looking at one another, then came a rustle of skirts, the sound of a penetrating, familiar voice, and Adelaide was sitting beside them. She had lost her part in the game, for the time being, and full of sisterly solicitude, had borne down on the pair with the object of interrupting that dangerous tet-a-tet. Ruben! she cried gaily. I want you to dine with me to-morrow. I don't know that I can, he answered ungraciously, the mask of apathy falling over his features, which a moment before had been instinct with life. Caroline Cadoso is coming. She has fifty thousand pounds and will do more when her father dies. You see, turning to Judith, I am a good sister and do not forget my duty. Judith made some commonplace rejoinder, and went on stitching, outwardly calm. Ruben, bitterly annoyed, tugged at the silks in the basket with those broad square hands of his, which, in spite of their superior delicacy, was so much like his grandfathers. And by the by, went on Adelaide, nothing daunted, you must bring Mr. Lee Harrison to see me, and then I can ask him to dinner. I don't know about that, answered Ruben slowly, looking at her from under his eyelids. He might swallow your juice. He walks by faith as regards them just at present. But as for the rest, a man doesn't care to meet bad imitations of the people of his own set, does he? Having planted this poisoned shaft, and feeling rather ashamed of himself, Ruben rose sullenly, and went to the card table, where Rose was winning steadily, and Esther, who all was sat down reluctantly, and ended by giving herself up completely to the excitement of the game, fingered with flushed cheeks her own diminishing horde. Adelaide and Judith, each in her own way shocked at this outburst of bad temper from the urbane Ruben, plunged into lame and awkward conversation. Only somewhere in the hidden depths of Judith's being, a voice was singing of triumph, and delight. CHAPTER VI He had a gentle yet aspiring mind, just, innocent, with varied learning fed. Shelly, Prince Atheneis. Judith rose early the next morning, and put the finishing touches to her embroidery. It was her mother's birthday, and she had planned to go to the Waterton Road after breakfast with her gift. But Rose claimed her for purposes of shopping, and the two girls set out together for the region of Westbourne Grove. It was a delicious autumn morning, whitelies was thronged with familiar sunburnt faces, and greetings were exchanged on all sides. The community had come back in a body from the country and the seaside in time for the impending religious festivals. The Feast of the New Year would be celebrated the next week, and the great fast, or day of atonement, some ten days later. How glad everyone is to get back, cried Rose. I know I hate the country. So do most people. Only it isn't the fashion to say so. And she nodded in passing to Adelaide, who, with her gloves off, was intently comparing the respective merits of some dress-lengths in brocaded velvet. Judith smiled rather dreamily and remarked that they had better go on first to the glove department, that for the sale of dress materials for which they were bound, being so hopelessly overcrowded. Very well, cried Rose, then, in an undertone. Look the other way. There's netta-sacks. What a howling cad! As a bouncing, gaily-attired daughter of Shem passed them in the throng. Rose was in her element. She was an excellent shopping woman, loving a bargain for its own sake, grudging no time to the matching of colors and such patience-trying operations, going through the business from beginning to end with a whole-hearted enjoyment that was good to see. Judith, who had all a pretty girl's interest in dress, and was generally willing enough for such expeditions, followed her cousin from counter to counter with a little amiable air of abstraction. Was there some magic in the autumn morning, some intoxication in the hazy, gold-colored air that she, the practical, sensible Judith, went about like a hashey-sheeter, under the first delightful influence of the dangerous drug? What a crowd, ejaculated Adelaide, coming up to them as she turned from the contemplation of some cheap ribbons in a basket. She had, to the full, the gregarious instincts of her race, and, wightly as was her happy hunting-ground, here on this neutral territory where Bayswater nodded to Maida Vale, and South Kensington took Bayswater by the hand, here could her boundless curiosity be gratified, here could her love of gossip have free play. We're going to get some lunch, said Rose, moving off. Judith has to go and see her people. She, too, loved the social aspects of the place no less than its business ones. Her pale, prominent, sleepy eyes, under their heavy white lids, saw quite as much and as quickly as Adelaide's dancing, glittering, hard little organs of vision. The girls lunched in the refreshment room, having obtained leave of absence from the family meal, then set out together from the shop. At the corner of Westbourne Grove they parted, Rose going towards home, Judith committing herself to a large blue omnibus. The Walterton Road is a dreary thoroughfare which, in respect of unloveliness, if not of length, leaves Harley Street condemned of the poet far behind. It is lined on either side with little sordid grey houses, characterised by tall flights of steps and bow-windows, the latter having for frequent adornment cards proclaiming the practice of various humble occupations, from the letting of lodgings to the tuning of pianos. About half way up the street Judith stopped the omnibus and mounted the steps to a house some degrees less dreary looking than the majority of its neighbours. Fresh white curtains hung in the clean windows, while steps, scraper, and doorbell bore witness to the hand of labour. Mrs. Quijano herself opened the door to her daughter and drew her by the hand into the sitting-room across the little hall to which still clung the odour of the midday mutton. Many happy returns of the day, mama, said Judith, kissing her and offering her parcel. I am sure it's very good of you to remember, my dear, answered her mother, leaning back in her chair, and taking in every detail of the girl's appearance—her gown, her bonnet, the tinge of sunburn on her fresh young cheek, a certain indescribable air of softness, of maidenliness, which was hers today. Israel Lunninger's sister was a stout, comely woman of middle age, red-haired, white-skinned, plump, with a projecting underlip and a comfortable double chin. She was disappointed with her life, but she made the best of it, loving her husband, though unable to sympathise with him, planning, working unremittingly for her six children, extracting the utmost benefit from the narrowest of means, a capable person who did her duty according to her own lights. So, Reuben Sachs has come back, she said, after some conversation. Judith glanced up quickly with a bright, gentle look. Yes, and he is ever so much better, quite himself again. Mrs. Quijano grumbled some inarticulate reply. Personally, she would not have been sorry if he had failed to return from the antipodes. As it may be imagined, she had been one of the first people whom the gossip about Reuben and her daughter had reached. She had begun to be jealously conscious that there was no one to protect Judith's interests. That, after all, it might have been better for the girl to take her chance in the Walterson Road than to waste her time among a set of people too greedy or too ambitious to marry her. Twenty-two, and no sign of a husband. Only a troublesome flirtation that kept off the rest of the world, and was not in the least likely to end in anything but smoke. And yet, thought Mrs. Quijano with the sudden burst of maternal pride and indignation, any man might be proud of such a wife. With her beauty, her health, and her air of breeding, surely she was good enough, and more than good enough for such a man as Reuben Sacks, his enormous pretensions, and those of his family on his behalf notwithstanding. The door opened presently to admit two little dark-eyed, foreign-looking children, children such as Marillo loved to paint, who had just returned from a walk with a very juvenile housemaid. They were Judith's youngest brothers, and as she knelt on the floor with her arm round one of them administering chocolate and burnt almonds, she was conscious of a new tenderness of a strange yearning affection for them in her heart. The girls would be so sorry to miss seeing you, said Mrs. Quijano, taking in the picture before her with her shrewd glance. They are at the high school, and Jack, of course, is in the city. Jack Quijano, the eldest of the family, was also its chief hope and pride. He had taken to finance as a duct of water, and from the humblest of births at Sacks and Coes had risen in a few years the proud position of authorized clerk. It had been evident, almost from the cradle, that he had inherited the true Leninger ambition and determination to get on in the world, qualities which had shone forth so conspicuously in the case of his uncle Israel, and, unlike the ambition and determination of the Sacks family, were unreleased by any touch of imagination or self-criticism. It is so disappointing not to see the girls, answered Judith, who was fond of her sisters when she remembered them, but, papa, is he at home? I shall not be disturbing him. A moment later she was standing with her hand on the door of the room at the back of the house where her father was accustomed to pass his time. Turning the handle, in obedience to a voice from within, she entered slowly a suggestion of shyness and reluctance in her manner, and found herself in a tiny apartment into which the afternoon sun was streaming. It was lined and littered with books, all of them dusty and many dilapidated. From the midst of this confusion of dust and sunlight rose a tall, lean, shabby figure, a middle-aged man with stooping shoulders, a very dark skin, dark straight, lank hair, growing close round the cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and long features. Well, Judith, my dear, he said, with his vague, pleasant smile, as she came forward and submitted her fresh cheek to his lips. I hope I don't disturb you, papa. And how is the treatise getting on? He shook his head and smiled, and Judith was content with this for an answer. She had only asked after the treatise from politeness not from any interest in the subject. Long ago in Portugal there had been Quijano doctors and scholars of distinction. When Joshua Quijano had been stranded high and dry by the tides of modern commercial competition, he had reverted to the ancestral pursuits, and for many years had devoted himself to collecting the materials for a monograph on the Jews of Spain and Portugal. Absorbed in close and curious learning in strange genealogical law, full of a simple, abstract, unthinking piety, he let the world and life go by unheeded. Judith remained with her father for some ten minutes. Conversation between them was never an easy matter, yet there was affection on both sides. Quijano's manners and customs were accepted facts, unalterable as natural laws, over which his children had never puzzled themselves. Some of them indeed had inherited to some extent the paternal temperament, but in most cases it had been overborn by the greater vitality of the Leningers. But today the Dusty Scholar's room, the Dusty Scholar, struck Judith with a new force. She looked about her wistfully, from the book-laden shelves, the paper-strewn tables, to her father's face and eyes, whence shone forth clear and frank his spirit, one of the pure spirits of this world. When Judith reached home it was already dusk, and afternoon tea was going on in the morning-room. Mrs. Leninger was absent, and Rose officiated at the tea-table, while Adelaide, her feet on the fender, her gloves off, was preparing for herself an attack of indigestion with unlimited muffins and strong tea. She had been paying calls in the neighbourhood, clad in the proof-mail of her very best manners, an uncomfortable garment which she had now thrown off, and was reclining, metaphorically speaking, in dressing gown and slippers. A burst of laughter from both young women greeted Judith's ears as she entered. �How late you are!� cried Rose. �What filial piety!� Judith knelt down by the fire, smiling, and took her part with spirit in the girlish jokes and gossip. It was six o'clock before Adelaide rose to go, by which time the attack of indigestion had set in. Her vivacity died out suddenly. Her features looked thick, strained, and lifeless. Her sallow skin took a positively orange tinge. �Dear me!� she cried ill-temperedly. �I had no idea it was so late. I must fly. I have one or two people dining with me to-night, the Cadosos, the Hanbury Frenchies, oh, and Ruben finds he can come. Judith felt suddenly as though a chill wind had struck her, but she called out gaily to Rose, who was escorting Adelaide to the door, that there was time before dinner to practice the new duet. CHAPTER VII On this day shall he make an atonement for you to purify you. You shall be clean from all your sins. Leviticus 1630 Herbert, or as he was generally spoken of, Bertie Lee Harrison, called at Lancaster Gate on the day of the new year to make acquaintance with Ruben's people and offer his best wishes for the year five thousand six hundred and forty. He was a small, fair, fluent person, very carefully dressed, assiduously polite, and bearing on his amiable, commonplace, neatly modelled little face no traces of the spiritual conflict which any one knowing his history might have supposed him to have passed through. Esther, who happened to be calling on her aunt at the time of Bertie's visit, classified him at once as an intelligent fool. But Adelaide professed herself delighted with the little man, and had the joy of informing him that she had once met his sister, Lady Chemis, at a garden party. Lady Chemis is charming, Ruben said, when the matter was being discussed. Sir Nicholas, too, is a good fellow. They have a place some miles out of St. Baldwin's. His mind ran a good deal on St. Baldwin's in these days, and on Paul Ronaldson, its conservative member, lying hopelessly ill in Grovener Place. Ruben, it may be added, was true to the traditions of his race and wore the primrose, while Leo, who knew nothing about politics, gave himself out as a social Democrat. Mr. Lee Harrison was to break his fast in Portland Place on the evening of the day of atonement, when it was old Solomon's custom to assemble his family round him in great numbers. Adelaide objected to this arrangement. It will give him such a bad impression, she said. He asked for local color, and local color he shall have, answered Ruben, amused. It is disloyal to your own people to assume such an attitude regarding them to a stranger. After all, he is not one of us, cried Adelaide, taking a high tone. Your accusations are a little vague, Addy, but to tell you the truth, I had no choice in the matter. I took him up yesterday to Portland Place, and the old man gave him the invitation. He simply jumped at it. Those dreadful Samuel Saxes, groaned Adelaide. Oh, they are a remarkable survival. You should learn to take them in the right spirit, answered her brother. He was dining that night at the house of an important conservative MP, and was disposed to take a cheerful view of things. The fast day, or day of atonement, is the greatest national occasion of the whole year. Even those lax Jews who practice their callings on Saturdays and other religious holidays are withheld by public opinion on either side the tribal barrier from doing so on this day of days. The synagogues are thronged, and if the number of people who rigidly adhere to total abstinence from food for twenty-four hours is rapidly diminishing, there are still many to be found who continue to do so. Solomon Saxe, his daughter Rebecca and the Montague Coins, worshipped in the Bayswater Synagogue. The rest of the family had seats in the reformed synagogue in Upper Berkeley Street, an arrangement to which the old man was too liberal minded to take objection. The Quijano family attended the synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Brixton Street, with the exception of Judith, who shared with her cousins the simplified service, the beautiful music, and other innovations of Upper Berkeley Street. The morning of the particular day of atonement of which I write, dawned bright and clear, and from an early hour in all quarters of the town the chosen people, a breakfastless band, might have been seen making their way to the synagogues. Many of the women were in white, which is considered appropriate wear for the occasion, and if traces of depression were discernible on many faces, in view of the long day before them, it is scarcely to be wondered at. It was about ten o'clock when the Lungers, who had all breakfasted, made their way into the great hall of the synagogue in Upper Berkeley Street, where the people were streaming in in great numbers. As they paused a moment at the bottom of the staircase leading to the ladies' gallery for their party to divide according to sex, Rubin came up to them with Bertie Lee Harrison in his wake. There was a general handshaking, and Rubin, as he pressed her fingers, smiled a half-humorous, half-ruful smile at Judith, a protest against the rigours and longer of the day which lay before them. She managed to say to him over her shoulder, How is Mr. Ronaldson? He has taken a turn for the better. They laughed in one another's faces. Bertie, struck by the effect of that sudden, rapidly-checked wave of mirth passing over the beautiful, serious face, remarked to Rubin as they turned towards the entrance to their part of the building that the Jewish ladies were certainly very lovely. Rubin said nothing. They were by this time well within the synagogue, but he glanced quickly and coldly under his eyelids at Bertie picking his way jauntily to his seat. Ernest Lunger, who was very devout and who loved the exercise of his religion even more than the game of solitaire, had already unwound himself in his tallet, exchanged his tall hat for an embroidered cap, and was muttering his prayers in Hebrew below his breath. Leo, his small, slight, picturesque figure, swirled carelessly in the long white garment with the fringes and the border of blue. His hat tilted over his eyes, leaned against a porphyry column lost to everything but the glorious music which rolled out from the great organ. He had come to-day under protest to prevent a definite break with his father, who exacted attendance at synagogue on no other day of the year. The time was yet to come when he should acknowledge to himself the depth of tribal feeling, of love of his race which lay at the root of his nature. At present he was aware of nothing but revolt against and almost hatred of a people who, as far as he could see, lived without ideals and was given up body and soul to the pursuit of material advantage. Behind him his two little brothers were quarrelling for possession of a prayer-book. Near him stood his father swaying from side to side and mumbling his prayers in the corrupt German Hebrew of his youth, a jargon not recognised by the modern culture of Upper Barclay Street. Rubin and his friends had seats opposite, seats moreover which commanded a good view of the ladies of the Leninger household in the gallery above, Mrs. Leninger in a rich lace shawl very much crumpled and a new bonnet hopelessly askew, rose in a tight-fitting costume of white with blue ribbons. Judith in white also, her dusky hair, the clear soft oval of her face surmounted by a flippant French bonnet, the very latest fashion. It was a long day, growing less and less indurable as it went on, the atmosphere getting thicker and hotter and sickly with the smell of stale perfume. The people, for the most part, stuck to their posts throughout. A few disappeared boldly about lunchtime, returning within an hour refreshed and cheerful. Some, these were chiefly men, fidgeted in and out of the building to the disturbance of their neighbours. One or two ladies fainted. One or two others gossiped audibly from morning till evening, but on the whole decorum was admirably maintained. Judith Quijano went through her devotions upheld by that sense of fitness, of obedience to law and order which characterised her in every action. It cannot be said that her religion had any strong hold over her. She accepted it unthinkingly. These prayers read so diligently, in a language of which her knowledge was exceedingly imperfect, these reiterated praises of an austere tribal deity, these expressions of a hope whose consummation was neither desired nor expected, what connection could they have with the personal needs of the human longings of this touchingly ignorant and limited creature? Now and then, when she lifted her eyes, she saw the bored, resigned face of Ruben opposite, and the respectful, attentive countenance of Mr. Lee Harrison, who was going through the day's proceedings with all the zeal of a convert. Leo had absented himself early in the day, and was wandering about the streets in one of those intolerable fits of restless misery which sometimes laid their hold on him. Esther was not in synagogue. She had a sharp wrangle with her mother the night before, which ended in her staying in bed with good-by-sweet heart for company. She, poor soul, was of those who deny utterly the existence of the friend of whom she stood so sorely in need. CHAPTER VIII MY LORD, WILL PLEASE YOU TO FALL TOO? RICHARD II A limp, drab, coloured group was assembled in the drawing-room at Portland Place. It was nearly half-past seven, and it only wanted the arrival of the Samuel Saxes, who came from the St. John's Wood synagogue, for the whole party to descend into the dining-room, where the much-needed meal awaited them. The lullangers were there, of course, with the exception of Ernest and his mother, who had gone home. The Saxes, the Montague Coins, Mrs. Coenthal and Esther, who had left her bed at the eleventh hour, prompted by a desire for society, Judith, Mr. and Mrs. Quijano, their son Jack, and two young sisters. Bertie Lee Harrison, who had come in with Reuben, pale, exhausted, but prepared to be impressed by everything and every one he saw, confided to his friend that the twenty-four hours fast had been the severest ordeal he had yet undergone in the service of religion, his experiences in Asia Minor not accepted. Leo, whose mood had changed, overheard this confidence with an irresistible twitching of the lips. He was sitting on the big sofa with his two little brothers, making jokes below his breath to their immense delight, while Rose, at the other end of the same piece of furniture, was maintaining an animated conversation with her cousin Jack. Jack Quijano was a spruce dapper, polite young man of some twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Perhaps he was a little too spruce, a little too dapper, a little too anxious to put himself en évidence by his assiduity in picking up handkerchiefs and opening doors, but few of his family noticed these defects, least of all Rose, on whom he was beginning to cast aspiring eyes, and whom he closely resembled in personal appearance. The door opened at last, and to everyone's relief, to admit the expected guests. A party of six, father, mother, grown-up son and daughter, a little girl, and a little boy. Samuel Sacks was the unsuccessful member of his family. From the beginning the atmosphere of the stock exchange had proved too strong for his not very strong brains, and his career had been inaugurated by a series of gambling debts. His father paid his debts and forbade him the office, and he had gone his way for many years, settling down ultimately in a humble way of business, as a lithographer. He had married a Polish duess, with some money of her own, and in these days old Solomon made him an allowance, so there was an orphan to spare in the home in Mada Vale, where he and his family were established. They came now into the crowded drawing-room, with a curious mixture of deference and self-assertion. To their eminently provincial minds, the Bayswater Saxes, the Lungers, and the Coenthals were very great people indeed, and they derived no little prestige in Mada Vale from their connection with so distinguished a family. But as regarded their occasional admittance into the charmed circle, that was a privilege which, though they would on no account have forgotten it, was certainly not without its drawbacks. It was splendid, but it was not comfortable. Mrs. Saxe was a stout, dark-haired matron, who entirely overshadowed her shambling, neutral, tinted husband. Netta, the eldest daughter, was a black-haired, richly-coloured, bouncing maiden of two or three and twenty, wearing a white dress with elbow sleeves, cut open a little at the neck, and a great deal of silver jewellery. Alec, her brother, was a short, fair, exuberant-looking youth, with a complexion both glossy and florid, in whom the Saxes' fitness for survival had reasserted itself. He practised painless dentistry with great success in the heart of Mada Vale, and was writing a manual, destined to pass through several editions, on diseases of the teeth and gums. Adele and Bernard, pronounced Adele and Bernard, the two children, strutted in behind the others, in all the glory of white cambrick and black velveteen, respectively, much impressed by the situation, but no less on the defensive than the elder members of their family. There was languid greeting all round. Langer, under the circumstances, was excusable, and then the whole party poured down into the dining-room, where an abundant meal was set out. Old Solomon prided himself on his hospitality, and the great table, which shone with snowy linen, gleaming china, and glittering silver, groaned, as the phrase goes, with good things to eat. There were golden-brown blocks of cold-fried fish in heavy silver dishes. Rosy piles of smoked salmon, saffron-tinted masses of stewed fish, long twisted loaves covered with seeds, innumerable little plates of olives, pickled herrings, and pickled cucumbers, and the quick eyes of Lionel and Sidney had lighted at once on the many coloured surfaces of the almond puddings, which awaited the second course on the sideboard. Aunt Rebecca, faint and yellow behind the silver urns, dispensed tea and coffee with rapid hand, while Old Solomon, none the worse for his rigid fast, wielded the fish-slice at the other end of the table. Bertie, respectful, wandering, interested through all his hunger, was seated between Rubin and Mrs. Coenthal. Adelaide had chosen her seat as far as possible from the Samuel Saxes, whose presence was an offence to her. They, on their part, regarded her with a mixture of respect and dislike. She never gave them more than two fingers in her grandfather's house, and ignored them all together when she met them anywhere else. This conduct impressed them by its magnificence, and they followed the ups and downs of her career as far as they were able, with a passionate interest that had in it something of the pride of possession, nor was Adelaide above taking an interest in the affairs of her humble relatives behind their backs. I cannot help wishing that they had known this. It would have been to them a source of so much innocent gratification. Rubin, who had his cousin Netta on the other side of him, and whose vanity was a far subtler, more complicated affair than his sisters, was making himself agreeable with his accustomed vanity, beneath which the delighted maiden was unable to detect a lurking irony. The humours of the Samuel Saxes, their appearance, gestures, their excruciating method of pronouncing the English language, the 101 tribal peculiarities which hung to them, had long served their cousins as a favourite family joke into which it would have been difficult for the most observant of outsiders to enter. They were indeed, as Rubin said, a remarkable survival. Born and bred in the very heart of nineteenth century London, belonging to an age and a city which has seen the throwing down of so many barriers, the levelling of so many distinctions of class, of caste, of race, of opinion, they had managed to retain the tribal characteristics, to live within the tribal pale, to an extent which spoke worlds for the national conservatism. They had been educated at Jewish schools, fed on Jewish food, brought up on Jewish traditions and Jewish prejudice. Their friends, with few exceptions, were of their own race, the making of acquaintance outside the tribal barrier, being sternly discouraged by the authorities. Mrs. Samuel Saxes, indeed, had been heard more than once to observe pleasantly that she would soon see her daughters lying dead before her, then married to Christians. Netta tossed her head defiantly at these remarks, but contented herself with sowing her little crop of wild oats on the staircases of Bayswater and Maida Vale, where she sat out by the hour with the very indifferent specimens of Englishmen who frequented the dances in her set. Generally speaking, the race instincts of Rebecca of York are strong, and she is less apt to give her heart to Ivanhoe the Saxon knight than might be imagined. Bernard Saxe, a very smug-looking little boy with inordinately thick lips and a disagreeable nasal twang, had been placed between the two young lullangers who regarded him with a mixture of disgust and amusement, which they were at small pains to conceal. Did you fast all day? he said, by way of opening the conversation. I did. I was bar mitzvah last month. Is either of you fellows bar mitzvah? I'm thirteen, if that's what you mean, said Lionel, with his most man of the world air. He considered the introduction of the popular tribal phrases very bad form indeed. I suppose you were in shool all day, went on Bernard, unabashed, and much on his dignity. I was only in the synagogue in the morning, answered Lionel. Then he kicked Sidney violently under the table, and the two little brothers went off into a series of chuckles, while Bernard, with a vague sense of being insulted, turned his attention to his fried salmon and Dutch herring. Meanwhile Alec, who had been rather subdued at the beginning of the evening, was regaining his native confidence as the meal proceeded. He happened to be sitting opposite Bertie, and having elicited from his neighbour Mrs. Guihano the explanation of an alien presence among them on such an occasion, had fixed his attention with great frankness on the stranger. Very soon he was leaning across the table, and with much use of his fat red hands, and many liftings of his round shoulders, was expatiating to the astonished Bertie on the beauties and advantages of the faith which he had just embraced. Mr. Harrison, he cried at last. He preferred to skip the difficulties of the double-barrelled Mr. Harrison, take my word for it. It is the finest religion under the sun. Those who have left it for reasons of their own have always come back in the end. They are bound to, they are bound to. He pronounced the word bound with an indescribable twang. Look at Lord Beaconsfield. He pointed with his short forefinger. Everyone knows he died with a schmar on his lips. There was a sudden stifled explosion of laughter from Leo's quarter of the table, and Judith glanced across rather anxiously at Ruben, on whose polite, impassive face she at once detected a look of annoyance. She was sitting next to her father in the close-fitting white gown which displayed to advantage the charming lines of her arms and shoulders. Now and then she caught the glance of Mr. Lee Harrison, who was far too well-bred to obtrude his admiration by staring, fixed momentarily on her face. The hunger and weariness natural under the circumstances to her youth and health had in no way marred the perfect freshness of her appearance, and there was a gentle kindliness in her manner to her father which added a charm, not always present, to her beauty. Perhaps she felt instinctively what Kehano himself was far too much in the clouds to notice, that no one made much account of him, that it behooved her to take him under her protection. He was one of this world's failures, and the Jewish people so eager to crown success in any form so determined in laying claim to the successful among their number, have scant love for those unfortunate who have dropped behind in the race. The meal came to an end at last, and there was a pushing back of chairs on the part of the men. Bertie, about to rise, felt himself held down by main force. Ruben was gripping him hard by the wrist with one hand, and with the other was engaging on fishing out his hat from under the table, while Netta, leaning across her cousin, explained with her most fascinating smile that grandpa was going to bench. Bertie, at a sign from Ruben, rose to the situation, and stooping for his own hat with a lacquerity, drew it from its place of concealment, and placed it on his head. By this time all the men had unearthed and assumed their headgear with the exception of Samuel Sacks, whose hat, by some mischance, was not forthcoming. However, to avoid delay, he covered his head in all gravity with his table napkin. Bertie glanced round him from one face to another, puzzled and inquiring. It seemed to him a solemn moment to this gathering together of kinsfolk after the long day of prayer, of expatiation, this offering up of thanksgiving, this performance of the ancient rites in the land of exile. He could not understand the spirit of indifference of levity even, which appeared to prevail. A finer historic sense, other motives apart, should it seemed, had prevented so obvious a display of the contempt which familiarity had bred. Alec had put his hat on rakishly askew, and was winking across to him reassuringly, as though to intimate that the whole thing was not to be taken seriously. Rose, led on by Jack Kehano, giggled hysterically behind her pocket-hankerchief. Leo and Esther took on airs of aggressive boredom. Judith, lifting her eyes, met Rubens in a smile, and even Montague Cohen permitted himself to yawn. Only old Solomon at the head of the table, mumbling and droning out the long grace in his corrupt Hebrew, his great face impenetrably grave, appeared to take any interest in the proceeding with perhaps the exception of his son Samuel, who joined in now and then from beneath the drooping shelter of his table napkin. Bertie stared, and Bertie wondered. Needless to state, he was completely out of touch with these people whose faith his search for the true religion had led him for the time being to embrace. Grace over the women went upstairs, the men, with the exception of old Solomon, remaining behind to smoke. Bertie, who was thoroughly tired out, soon rose to go. I will make your excuses upstairs, said Ruben. But the polite little man preferred to go to the drawing-room and perform his farewells in person. Thanks so much, he said in the hall where Leo and Ruben were speeding him. I hope you've been edified, that's all, Ruben laughed. I'm deeply interested in the Jewish character, answered Bertie. The strongly marked contrasts, the underlying resemblances, the elaborate differentiations from a fundamental type. Oh yes, broke in Ruben, secretly irritated, his tribal sensitivities a little hurt. You will find among us all sorts and conditions of men, except perhaps Don Quixote or even King Caffetua, added Leo. King Caffetua repeated Ruben in a slow, reflective tone, as the door closed on Mr. Lee Harrison. King Caffetua had an assured position. It isn't every one that can afford to marry beggar-maids. End of Chapter 8