"We are used to having our friends forget us," murmured his wife, who sat sewing beside the lamp. She was a brisk, dark-haired woman, a member of the famous Franks family which had served the country so well during the dark days of the Revolution. "Of the many youths my husband aided in prison, you are the first one who came to thank him for his service."
"Nay, Rachel," her husband chided her gently. "I did not seek for thanks. And it was not those brave soldiers I tried to serve, but freedom." His tired eyes glowed with a warm light as he turned to Louis. "I was born in unhappy Poland, so it is not strange that I loved freedom with all my heart and with all my soul. And when I was in prison, no longer free to serve this country which had welcomed me so heartily, I thanked God that I was permitted to aid those who were fighting her battles and seeking to make her free before the world."
"And after he escaped here to Philadelphia," added his wife, a note of pride in her voice, "he fought for the colonies just as surely as Colonel Franks upon the battlefield. You have heard of the vast sums of money he lent the bankrupt government—and without a bit of security, too."
Haym held up his hand in protest. "What security did I need? If I could not trust my country, whom should I trust?" he asked her in quiet sincerity.
She bent her dark head over the little garment she was mending, her lips curved a bit scornfully. "I try not to be impatient. I know that even though peace has come, commerce is still languishing; that it will take many, many months for the government to pay its debts. Yet it hurts me to see you so worried, so hampered because you lack capital to go on with your business." Her dark eyes sparkled with indignation. "You are only forty-five, Haym," she declared, almost fiercely, "and yet your many cares make you seem almost an old man."
"I am glad to have been able to give my youth to my country," he answered. Then, turning to Louis di Vernon: "Do not think my wife too bitter? She has had sore trials," and he gently patted her work-worn hand. "I know it is not for herself she grieves, but she is troubled for me and for our little ones. And, in truth, things have grown dark for us of late. My business has suffered during the war and I was obliged to neglect it while I attended to affairs of state. And now that peace has come at last, I find that my old good fortune has deserted me."
"If you had only kept the remnant of your fortune," sighed his wife, "the sixty-four thousand dollars you lent to Mr. Morris for his bank would have tided us over these evil times."
"But I could not allow the National Bank to fail," protested Salomon. "Somehow," turning to his guest, "I have grown like the old philosopher of my people who was so unfortunate that he once declared that if he took to making shoes everyone would go barefoot, if he became a shroud maker, no one would die." He laughed softly, then grew suddenly grave. "The merchants to whom I have extended credit have failed. There have been losses at sea—" he shrugged, and became silent, his eyes grown strangely large in his thin white face, seeming to look into the far future. "Mr. Madison and my other friends will not forget me," he said slowly, "and my country in whose keeping I may have to leave my wife and infant children before long, will be glad to repay her debt and care for them." A strange look of peace swept over his tired face; it was well that his dimming eyes could not see the long years during which his country would forget to be grateful and to repay.
A feeling half of pity, half of shame filled the young man's heart. "I—I am sorry," he stammered.
"You need not pity me." Salomon smiled his old gentle smile. "I have been given a chance to serve the cause of freedom with my fortune; I have been of service to my own people, too, the Hebrews of Philadelphia, and it gladdens my heart to believe that my children's children will worship the God of our fathers here in this place in the synagogue I have helped to build. I do not think my life has been such a very great failure after all," he ended, naively. "And it is good to know that what I have done has borne fruit. That is why your coming here tonight to thank me has heartened me more than news of the safe arrival of those missing merchant-ships at port."