'Eh, Parliament? Me?' he stammered.
'Yes, why not? I've always had it in my eye.'
His face grew gloomy.
'It is not practicable,' he said, shaking the head with the prominent teeth and ears.
'Not practicable!' she echoed sharply. 'Just think of what you've achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. Not practicable, indeed! Why, that's the very word you used years ago in the provinces when I said you ought to be President. You said old Winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I felt certain your superior English would tell in the long-run in such a miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that delicious blunder about the "university" of the Exodus instead of the "anniversary" and I went about laughing over it in all the best circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? Didn't you tell me that we should never rise to the surface?'
'It didn't seem probable, did it?' he murmured in self-defence.
'Of course not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all filled up by old hands; there was no way of getting on the Council and meeting our magnates.'
'Yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. I had not much difficulty in persuading the United Synagogue that a new synagogue was a crying want in Kensington, but I could hardly persuade the Government that a new constituency is a crying want in London.'
He spoke pettishly; his ambition required rousing, and was easily daunted.
'No, but somebody's going to start a new something else, Henry,' said Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. 'Trust in me; think of what we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling cost, thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue—you, the representative of the Kensington synagogue, with a "Sir" for a colleague and a congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to be the most fashionable in London; likewise a member of the Council of the Anglo-Jewish Association and an honorary officer of the Shechitah Board; I, connected with several first-class charities, on the committee of our leading school, and acknowledged discoverer of a girl who gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. We have a reputation for wealth, culture, and hospitality, and it is quite two years since we shook off the last of the Maida Vale lot, who are so graphically painted in that novel of Mr. Armitage's. Who are our guests now? Take to-night's. A celebrated artist, a brilliant young Oxford man, both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family; an authoress of repute, who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very first families of the community; and, lastly, the Montagu Samuels, with the brother, Percy Saville, who go only to the best houses. Is there any other house, where the company is so exclusively Jewish, that could boast of a better gathering?'