id not answer.

"I wanted to write and tell you how much," he began desperately, then
stammered, and ended--"how much I liked _Mordecai Josephs_."

This time the reproachful "Oh!" came from her lips. "I thought better of
you," she said. "You didn't say that in _The Flag of Judah_; writing it
privately to me wouldn't do me any good in any case."

He felt miserable; from the crude standpoint of facts, there was no
answer to give. He gave none.

"I suppose it is all about now?" she went on, seeing him silent.

"Pretty well," he answered, understanding the question. Then, with an
indignant accent, he said, "Mrs. Goldsmith tells everybody she found it
out; and sent you away."

"I am glad she says that," she remarked enigmatically. "And, naturally,
everybody detests me?"

"Not everybody," he began threateningly.

"Don't let us stand on the steps," she interrupted. "People will be
looking at us." They moved slowly downwards, and into the hot, bustling
streets. "Why are you not at the _Flag_? I thought this was your busy
day." She did not add, "And so I ventured to the Museum, knowing there
was no chance of your turning up;" but such was the fact.

"I am not the editor any longer, he replied.

"Not?" She almost came to a stop. "So much for my critical faculty; I
could have sworn to your hand in every number."

"Your critical faculty equals your creative," he began.

"Journalism has taught you sarcasm."

"No, no! please do not be so unkind. I spoke in earnestness. I have only
just been dismissed."

"Dismissed!" she echoed incredulously. "I thought the _Flag_ was your
own?"

He grew troubled. "I bought it--but for another. We--he--has dispensed
with my services."

"Oh, how shameful!"

The latent sympathy of her indignation cheered him again.

"I am not sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I really was outgrowing its
original platform."

"What?" she asked, with a note of mockery in her voice. "You have left
off being orthodox?"

"I don't say that, it seems to me, rather, that I have come to
understand I never was orthodox in the sense that the orthodox
understand the word. I had never come into contact with them before. I
never realized how unfair orthodox writers are to Judaism. But I do not
abate one word of what I have ever said or written, except, of course,
on questions of scholarship, which are always open to revision."

"But what is to become of me--of my conversion?" she said, with mock
piteousness.