'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the subject.'
'A crank? About Jews?'
'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are responsible for the war—and that they leave the fighting to the English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not treated as we should be, considering——'
Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that, when you yourself—when you saved his——'
'Well, I suppose just because he knows I was fighting, he doesn't think of me as a Jew. It's a bit illogical, I know.' And he smiled ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'
'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a property desk.
'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help him into the saddle.'
'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to the war?' she persisted. 'Why, the paper had all their photographs!'
'What paper?' said Simon, laughing. 'Do you suppose he reads the Jewish what's-a-name, like you? Why, he's never heard of it!'
'Then you ought to show him a copy.'