'Then you will live with your people, I suppose?'
'I suppose so. I dare say I shall become quite good again. Ah, your new Judaisms will never appeal like the old, with all its imperfections. They will never keep the race together through shine and shade as that did. They do but stave off the inevitable dissolution. It is beautiful—that old childlike faith in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that patient waiting through the centuries for the Messiah who even to you, I dare say, is a mere symbol.' Again the wistful look lit up her eyes. 'That's what you rich people will never understand—it doesn't seem to go with dinner in seven courses, somehow.'
'Oh, but I do understand,' he protested. 'It's what I told Strelitski, who is all for intellect in religion. He is going to America, too,' he said, with a sudden pang of jealous apprehension.
'On a holiday?'
'No; he is going to resign his ministry here.'
'What! Has he got a better offer from America?'
'Still so cruel to him,' he said reprovingly. 'He is resigning for conscience' sake.'
'After all these years?' she queried sarcastically.
'Miss Ansell, you wrong him! He was not happy in his position. You were right so far. But he cannot endure his shackles any longer. And it is you who have inspired him to break them.'
'I?' she exclaimed, startled.