She looked very stately and beautiful in her deep mourning, and was evidently glad to see me. We were together for fully a quarter of an hour before Mr. and Mrs. Gascoyne came down, and she talked quite freely and unconstrainedly of her brother.
The more I saw of her, the more I was struck by her absolute lack of pose in any small acceptation of the word. It positively gave me a sense of personal dignity to be with her.
“I am thinking of selling the Grange,” she said. “So long as there was my brother it seemed to me a certain sort of duty that the offshoots of a great family should keep up an appearance and have a fair country residence.” Then she smiled. “I am afraid, however, that my views are changing. I don’t look upon the Gascoynes as quite such great people as I used to do, though I still think that if one bears a great name one owes it a duty.”
“I am half a Jew,” I said, boldly, “and as an Oriental I have a great respect for caste and authority.”
“Do you think that is why the Jews succeed so well?”
“Yes; their chief aim is to remain at peace with the powers that be, and as Orientals they are satisfied that authority in this country abuses its privileges very little. They have no craving for more liberty.”
“They are a curious race.”
“I am not a Jew by religion, you know. I was baptised a Christian.”
She smiled.
“I don’t wish to be rude, but is that as far as your Christianity has reached?”