lay on a couch, lit it, and held it before
the glass; it flared up threateningly and she beat it out, laughing
hysterically and asking herself if she was mad. But she had seen the
ugly little face; its expression frightened her. Yes, love was not for
her; she could only love a man of brilliancy and culture, and she was
nothing but a Petticoat Lane girl, after all. Its coarseness, its
vulgarity underlay all her veneer. They had got into her book; everybody
said so. Raphael said so. How dared she write disdainfully of Raphael's
people? She an upstart, an outsider? She went to the library, lit the
gas, got down a volume of Graetz's history of the Jews, which she had
latterly taken to reading, and turned over its wonderful pages. Then she
wandered restlessly back to the great dim drawing-room and played
amateurish fantasias on the melancholy Polish melodies of her childhood
till Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith returned. They had captured the Rev.
Joseph Strelitski and brought him back to dinner, Esther would have
excused herself from the meal, but Mrs. Goldsmith insisted the minister
would think her absence intentionally discourteous. In point of fact,
Mrs. Goldsmith, like all Jewesses a born match-maker, was not
disinclined to think of the popular preacher as a sort of adopted
son-in-law. She did not tell herself so, but she instinctively resented
the idea of Esther marrying into the station of her patroness.
Strelitski, though his position was one of distinction for a Jewish
clergyman, was, like Esther, of humble origin; it would be a match which
she could bless from her pedestal in genuine good-will towards both
parties.

The fashionable minister was looking careworn and troubled. He had aged
twice ten years since his outburst at the Holy Land League. The black
curl hung disconsolately on his forehead. He sat at Esther's side, but
rarely looking at her, or addressing her, so that her taciturnity and
scarcely-veiled dislike did not noticeably increase his gloom. He
rallied now and again out of politeness to his hostess, flashing out a
pregnant phrase or two. But prosperity did not seem to have brought
happiness to the whilom, poor Russian student, even though he had fought
his way to it unaided.

CHAPTER VI.

COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?

The weeks went on and Passover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast
brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with
strange things to eat and drink, and a compa