'Yes, I told him why you had left Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's—it seemed to act like an electrical stimulus. Then and there he made me write a paragraph announcing his resignation. It will appear to-morrow.'
Esther's eyes filled with soft light. She walked on in silence; then, noticing she had automatically walked too much in the direction of her place of concealment, she came to an abrupt stop.
'We must part here,' she said. 'If I ever come across my old shepherd in America, I will be nicer to him. It is really quite heroic of him—you must have exaggerated my own petty sacrifice alarmingly if it really supplied him with inspiration. What is he going to do in America?'
'To preach a universal Judaism. He is a born idealist; his ideas have always such a magnificent sweep. Years ago he wanted all the Jews to return to Palestine.'
Esther smiled faintly, not at Strelitski, but at Raphael's calling another man an idealist. She had never yet done justice to the strain of common-sense that saved him from being a great man; he and the new Strelitski were of one breed to her.
'He will make Jews no happier, and Christians no wiser,' she said sceptically. 'The great populations will sweep on, as affected by the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on itself—rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit. We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism—old or new—is a forlorn hope.'
'The forlorn hope will yet save the world,' he answered quietly, 'but it has first to be saved to the world.'
'Be happy in your hope,' she said gently. 'Good-bye.' She held out her little hand. He had no option but to take it.
'But we are not going to part like this,' he said desperately. 'I shall see you again before you go to America?'
'No, why should you?'