“A charity whose right hand is so remarkably well posted up in the doings of its left!”
“Oh, come, that’s a libel—and not even true.”
“There is one good thing,” cried Leo, taking a fresh start, “and that is the inevitability—at least as regards us English Jews—of our disintegration; of our absorption by the people of the country. That is the price we are bound to pay for restored freedom and consideration. The Community will grow more and more to consist of mediocrities, and worse, as the general world claims our choicer specimens for its own. We may continue to exist as a separate clan, reinforced from below by German and Polish Jews for some time to come: but absorption complete, inevitable—that is only a matter of time. You and I sitting here, self-conscious, discussing our own race-attributes, race-position—are we not as sure a token of what is to come as anything well could be?”
“Yours is a sweeping theory,” said Reuben; “and at present, I don’t feel inclined to go into the rights and wrongs of it; still less to deny its soundness. I can only say that, should I live to see it borne out, I should be very sorry. It may be a weakness on my part, but I am exceedingly fond of my people. If we are to die as a race, we shall die harder than you think. The tide will ebb in the intervals of flowing. That strange, strong instinct which has held us so long together is not a thing easily eradicated. It will come into play when it is least expected. Jew will gravitate to Jew, though each may call himself by another name. If prejudice died, if difference of opinion died, if all the world, metaphorically speaking, thought one thought and spoke one language, there would still remain those unspeakable mysteries, affinity and—love.”
Reuben’s voice sounded curiously moved, and in his eyes, as he spoke, glowed a dreamy flame, as of some deep and tender emotion.
Judith, leaning forward with parted lips, lifted her shining eyes to his face in a long, unconscious gaze. Reuben with his sword in his hand, fighting the battle for his people, seemed to her a figure noble and heroic beyond speech.
In her own breast was kindled the flame of a great emotion; she felt the love of her race grow stronger at every word.
Reuben, conscious to the finger-tips of Judith’s presence, of her gaze, which he did not return, was stirred, on his part, with a new enthusiasm.
He praised her in the race, and the race in her; and this was conveyed in some subtle manner to her consciousness.
Thus they acted and reacted on one another, deceiving and deceived, with that strange, unconscious hypocrisy of lovers.