'And so she is still a Bachelor?' said Raphael, smiling, but evidently impressed.

'Yes, but not for long, I hope,' returned Mrs. Goldsmith. 'Come, darling, everybody's dying to hear one of your little songs.'

'The dying is premature,' said Esther. 'You know I only sing for my own amus.e.m.e.nt.'

'Sing for mine, then,' pleaded Raphael.

'To make you laugh?' queried Esther. 'I know you'll laugh at the way I play the accompaniment. One's fingers have to be used to it from childhood----'

Her eyes finished the sentence, 'and you know what mine was.'

The look seemed to seal their secret sympathy.

She went to the piano and sang in a thin but trained soprano. The song was a ballad with a quaint air full of sadness and heart-break. To Raphael, who had never heard the psalmic wails of the Sons of the Covenant or the Polish ditties of f.a.n.n.y Belcovitch, it seemed also full of originality. He wished to lose himself in the sweet melancholy, but Mrs. Goldsmith, who had taken Esther's seat at his side, would not let him.

'Her own composition, words and music,' she whispered. 'I wanted her to publish it, but she is so shy and retiring. Who would think she was the child of a pauper immigrant, a rough jewel one has picked up and polished? If you really are going to start a new Jewish paper, she might be of use to you. And then there is Miss Cissy Levine: you have read her novels, of course? Sweetly pretty. Do you know, I think we are badly in want of a new paper, and you are the only man in the community who could give it us. We want educating, we poor people, we know so little of our faith and our literature.'

'I am so glad you feel the want of it,' whispered Raphael, forgetting Esther in his pleasure at finding a soul yearning for the light.

'Intensely. I suppose it will be advanced?'

Raphael looked at her a moment a little bewildered.

'No, it will be orthodox. It is the orthodox party that supplies the funds.'

A flash of light leapt into Mrs. Goldsmith's eyes.

'I am so glad it is not as I feared,' she said. 'The rival party has. .h.i.therto monopolised the press, and I was afraid that, like most of our young men of talent, you would give it that tendency. Now at last we poor orthodox will have a voice. It will be written in English?'

'As far as I can,' he said, smiling.

'No, you know what I mean. I thought the majority of the orthodox couldn't read English, and that they have their jargon papers. Will you be able to get a circulation?'

'There are thousands of families in the East End now among whom English is read, if not written. The evening papers sell as well there as anywhere else in London.'

'Bravo!' murmured Mrs. Goldsmith, clapping her hands.

Esther had finished her song. Raphael awoke to the remembrance of her.

But she did not come to him again, sitting down instead on a lounge near the piano, where Sidney bantered Addie with his most paradoxical persiflage.

Raphael looked at her. Her expression was abstracted; her eyes had an inward look. He hoped her headache had not got worse. She did not look at all pretty now. She seemed a frail little creature with a sad, thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry company. Poor little thing! He felt as if he had known her for years.

She seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. He doubted even his own capacity to commune with her inmost soul. He wished he could be of service to her, could do anything for her that might lighten her gloom and turn her morbid thoughts in healthier directions.

The butler brought in some claret negus. It was the break-up signal.

Raphael drank his negus with a pleasant sense of arming himself against the cold air. He wanted to walk home smoking his pipe, which he always carried in his overcoat. He clasped Esther's hand with a cordial smile of farewell.

'We shall meet again soon, I trust,' he said.

'I hope so,' said Esther. 'Put me down as a subscriber to that paper.'

'Thank you,' he said; 'I won't forget.'

'What's that?' said Sidney, p.r.i.c.king up his ears, 'doubled your circulation already?'

Sidney put Cousin Addie into a hansom, as she did not care to walk, and got in beside her.

'My feet are tired,' she said; 'I danced a lot last night, and was out a lot this afternoon. It's all very well for Raphael, who doesn't know whether he's walking on his head or his heels. Here, put your collar up, Raphael; not like that, it's all crumpled. Haven't you got a handkerchief to put round your throat? Where's that one I gave you?

Lend him yours, Sidney.'

'You don't mind if _I_ catch my death of cold. I've got to go on to a Christmas dance when I deposit you on your doorstep,' grumbled Sidney.

'Catch! There, you duffer! It's gone into the mud. Sure you won't jump in? Plenty of room. Addie can sit on my knee. Well, ta-ta! Merry Christmas!'

Raphael lit his pipe and strode off with long ungainly strides. It was a clear, frosty night, and the moonlight glistened on the silent s.p.a.ces of street and square.

'Go to bed, my dear,' said Mrs. Goldsmith, returning to the lounge where Esther still sat brooding. 'You look quite worn out.'

Left alone, Mrs. Goldsmith smiled pleasantly at Mr. Goldsmith, who, uncertain of how he had behaved himself, always waited anxiously for the verdict. He was pleased to find it was 'Not guilty' this time.

'I think that went off very well,' she said. She was looking very lovely to-night, the low bodice emphasising the voluptuous outlines of the bust.

'Splendidly!' he returned. He stood with his coat-tails to the fire, his coa.r.s.e-grained face beaming like an extra lamp. 'The people and those croquettes were A 1. The way Mary's picked up French cookery is wonderful.'

'Yes, especially considering she denies herself b.u.t.ter. But I'm not thinking of that, nor of our guests.' He looked at her, wondering.

'Henry,' she continued impressively, 'how would you like to get into Parliament?'

'Eh, Parliament? Me?' he stammered.

'Yes, why not? I've always had it in my eye.'

His face grew gloomy.

'It is not practicable,' he said, shaking the head with the prominent teeth and ears.

'Not practicable!' she echoed sharply. 'Just think of what you've achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. Not practicable, indeed! Why, that's the very word you used years ago in the provinces when I said you ought to be President. You said old Winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I felt certain your superior English would tell in the long-run in such a miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that delicious blunder about the "university" of the Exodus instead of the "anniversary" and I went about laughing over it in all the best circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? Didn't you tell me that we should never rise to the surface?'

'It didn't seem probable, did it?' he murmured in self-defence.

'Of course not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all filled up by old hands; there was no way of getting on the Council and meeting our magnates.'

'Yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. I had not much difficulty in persuading the United Synagogue that a new synagogue was a crying want in Kensington, but I could hardly persuade the Government that a new const.i.tuency is a crying want in London.'

He spoke pettishly; his ambition required rousing, and was easily daunted.

'No, but somebody's going to start a new something else, Henry,' said Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. 'Trust in me; think of what we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling cost, thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue--you, the representative of the Kensington synagogue, with a "Sir" for a colleague and a congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to be the most fashionable in London; likewise a member of the Council of the Anglo-Jewish a.s.sociation and an honorary officer of the _Shechitah_ Board; I, connected with several first-cla.s.s charities, on the committee of our leading school, and acknowledged discoverer of a girl who gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. We have a reputation for wealth, culture, and hospitality, and it is quite two years since we shook off the last of the Maida Vale lot, who are so graphically painted in that novel of Mr. Armitage's. Who are our guests now? Take to-night's. A celebrated artist, a brilliant young Oxford man, both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family; an auth.o.r.ess of repute, who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very first families of the community; and, lastly, the Montagu Samuels, with the brother, Percy Saville, who go only to the best houses. Is there any other house, where the company is so exclusively Jewish, that could boast of a better gathering?'

'I don't say anything against the company,' said her husband awkwardly; 'it's better than we got in the provinces. But your company isn't your const.i.tuency. What const.i.tuency would have me?'

'Certainly no ordinary const.i.tuency would have you,' admitted his wife frankly. 'I am thinking of Whitechapel.'