“My dear girl, my dear girl, you are not to do this unless you are sure it is for your happiness. Remember, there is always a home for you here. You can always come back to us.”
She let her face lie on his breast, while the tears flowed unchecked. His words, the kind, timid, caressing movements with which he accompanied them were sweet to her, though in the depths of her heart she knew that there was no turning back.
Material advantage; things that you could touch and see and talk about; that these were the only things which really mattered, had been the unspoken gospel of her life.
Now and then you allowed yourself the luxury of a fine sentiment in speech, but when it came to the point, to take the best that you could get for yourself was the only course open to a person of sense.
The push, the struggle, the hunger and greed of her world rose vividly before her. Wealth, power, success—a flaunting success for all men to see; had she not believed in these things as the most desirable on earth? Had she not always wished them to fall to the lot of the person dearest to her? Did she not believe in them still? Was she not doing her best to secure them for herself?
But she was Joshua Quixano’s daughter—was it possible that she cared for none of these things?
CHAPTER XVIII.
The essence of love is kindness; and indeed it may
be best defined as passionate kindness.
R. L Stevenson.
There is nothing more dear to the Jewish heart than an engagement; and when, four days after the events of the last chapter, that between Judith and Bertie was made public, congratulations flowed in, people called at all hours of the day, and the house in Kensington Palace Gardens presented a scene of cheerful activity and excitement.
The Community, after much discussion, much shaking of heads over the degeneracy of the times, had decided on accepting Bertie’s veneer of Judaism as the real thing, and the engagement was treated like any other. If Mr. Lee-Harrison had continued in the faith of his fathers this would not have been the case. Though both engagement and marriage would in a great number of instances have been countenanced, their recognition would have been less formal and public, and of course a fair proportion of Jews would never have recognized them at all.