“Good-night, Mr. Moore,” she said, holding out her hand. “I am sorry if I hurt you by what I said before, and if—if you will have me as a friend—?”
He bent over the hand and raised it to his lips.
“Certainly we are friends, Patricia,” he answered quietly, with an involuntary sigh. “Moore—the anti-Semite—is dead.”
“And Mr. Moore the Christian statesman lives!” She glanced into his face with shining eyes. “Oh, I am so glad—so glad! I feel as if I could sing a Te Deum of praise!”
THE LAST CHAPTER
THE SKIRT OF A JEW
So the English nation decided that it was more to their advantage to “take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew” than to avoid him altogether; and the Expulsion Act was eventually repealed. But Parliament was too wary to fall into the old error of allowing unrestricted immigration, and determined to keep the pauper alien away from English shores. Fortunately this class was rapidly becoming extinct, for in the Holy Land there was work and a welcome for all, and the term “pauper alien” would soon be as worn out as the dodo. Moreover, the establishment of the Jews in Palestine meant an end to the atrocities to which they had been subjected from time to time in Eastern Europe: for in their own land they were at least free. And even though the English population flowed steadily back to the dearly-loved native country, there were still enough Jews in Palestine to promote the general welfare of the Jewish State. Indeed, the return of the Jews to England proved a beneficial check to the threatened overcrowding of the towns.
Haifa—as Patricia had predicted—soon lost its English citizens, and Lionel Montella found it easy to resign his post. His mother, preferring to remain in the Holy Land, went to live with Dr. and Mrs. Engelmacher in Jerusalem, but intended to visit England once a year. The others made preparations to leave in the ensuing April; perhaps they were less susceptible to the claims of ancestry.
Patricia’s joy knew no bounds, and she was so busy preparing for their return that the intermediate months seemed to have taken wings. With generous magnanimity her husband renounced the ownership of Burstall Abbey in favour of his step-brother; and she had been commissioned to see that the place was prepared for the reception of Sir Ferdinand and his bride. Lionel himself intended to stay at Ivydene, prior to purchasing a new and suitable town-house near Piccadilly, for Patricia had refused her father’s offer of his mansion for the whole of the forthcoming season. So she occupied herself in beautifying the villa so far as its dimensions would allow, and spared no pains to make it as attractive as possible. She called Mrs. Lowther into the nursery one day to see the alterations she had made, and leaning against the dappled back of the rocking-horse, gave vent to the rapture which burned within her breast.
“To think that in a week’s time my little Julian will be here!” she exclaimed, with joy. “And I thought when I left him that I should not see him for years!”
And then she proceeded to relate a pretty little anecdote of his infancy; for nothing gave her greater pleasure than to talk about her boy.