"Really, I wasn't thinking of him for the moment," she said a little sharply. "However, in any case there's nothing worth doing till May, and that's some months ahead. I'll do the Academy for you if you like."
"Thank you. Won't Sidney stare if you pulverize him in The Flag of
Judah? Some of the pictures have also Jewish subjects, you know."
"Yes, but if I mistake not, they're invariably done by Christian artists."
"Nearly always," he admitted pensively. "I wish we had a Jewish allegorical painter to express the high conceptions of our sages."
"As he would probably not know what they are,"—she murmured. Then, seeing him rise as if to go, she said: "Won't you have a cup of tea?"
"No, don't trouble," he answered.
"Oh yes, do!" she pleaded. "Or else I shall think you're angry with me for not asking you before." And she rang the bell. She discovered, to her amusement, that Raphael took two pieces of sugar per cup, but that if they were not inserted, he did not notice their absence. Over tea, too, Raphael had a new idea, this time fraught with peril to the Sèvres tea-pot.
"Why couldn't you write us a Jewish serial story?" he said suddenly.
"That would be a novelty in communal journalism."
Esther looked startled by the proposition.
"How do you know I could?" she said after a silence.