Sidney patted her soft warm hand, and smoothed the finely-curved arm, and did not seem disposed to let the shadow of Esther mar the moment, though he would ever remain grateful to her for the hint which had simultaneously opened his eyes to Addie's affection for him, and to his own answering affection so imperceptibly grown up. The river glided on softly, glorified by the sunset.
"It makes one believe in a dogged destiny," he grumbled, "shaping the ends of the race, and keeping it together, despite all human volition. To think that I should be doomed to fall in love, not only with a Jewess but with a pious Jewess! But clever men always fall in love with conventional women. I wonder what makes you so conventional, Addie."
Addie, still smiling, pressed his hand in silence, and gazed at him in fond admiration.
"Ah, well, since you are so conventional, you may as well kiss me."
Addie's blush deepened, her eyes sparkled ere she lowered them, and subtly fascinating waves of expression passed across the lovely face.
"They'll be wondering what on earth has become of us," she said.
"It shall be nothing on earth—something in heaven," he answered. "Kiss me, or I shall call you unconventional."
She touched his cheek hurriedly with her soft lips.
"A very crude and amateur kiss," he said critically. "However, after all, I have an excuse for marrying you—which all clever Jews who marry conventional Jewesses haven't got—you're a fine model. That is another of the many advantages of my profession. I suppose you'll be a model wife, in the ordinary sense, too. Do you know, my darling, I begin to understand that I could not love you so much if you were not so religious, if you were not so curiously like a Festival Prayer-Book, with gilt edges and a beautiful binding."
"Ah, I am so glad, dear, to hear you say that," said Addie, with the faintest suspicion of implied past disapproval.