"I don't deny that; probably the man was sincerely indignant at certain aspects. I am ready to allow he did not even see he was one-sided. But if you see it, why not show the world the other side of the shield?"
She put her hand wearily to her brow.
"Do not ask me," she said. "To have my work appreciated merely because the moral tickled the reader's vanity would be a mockery. The suffrages of the Jewish public—I might have valued them once; now I despise them." She sank further back on the chair, pale and silent.
"Why, what harm have they done you?" he asked.
"They are so stupid," she said, with a gesture of distaste.
"That is a new charge against the Jews."
"Look at the way they have denounced this Armitage, saying his book is vulgar and wretched and written for gain, and all because it does not flatter them."
"Can you wonder at it? To say 'you're another' may not be criticism, but it is human nature."
Esther smiled sadly. "I cannot make you out at all," she said.
"Why? What is there strange about me?"