stump of cigar. "No, no, I go write my lecture--oh it vill be a great
lecture. You vill announce it in the paper! You vill not leave it out
like Sampson left out my article last week." He was at the door now,
with his finger alongside his nose.

Raphael shook himself impatiently, and the poet threw the door wide open
and disappeared.

For a full minute Raphael dared not look towards the door for fear of
seeing the poet's cajoling head framed in the opening. When he did, he
was transfixed to see Esther Ansell's there, regarding him pensively.

His heart beat painfully at the shock; the room seemed flooded with
sunlight.

"May I come in?" she said, smiling.

CHAPTER X.

ESTHER DEFIES THE UNIVERSE.

Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than
usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of color
in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled. She had walked in cold sunny weather
from the British Museum (where she was still supposed to be), and the
wind had blown loose a little wisp of hair over the small shell-like
ear. In her left hand she held a roll of manuscript. It contained her
criticisms of the May Exhibitions. Whereby hung a tale.

In the dark days that followed the scene with Levi, Esther's resolution
had gradually formed. The position had become untenable. She could no
longer remain a _Schnorrer_; abusing the bounty of her benefactors into
the bargain. She must leave the Goldsmiths, and at once. That was
imperative; the second step could be thought over when she had taken
the first. And yet she postponed taking the first. Once she drifted out
of her present sphere, she could not answer for the future, could not be
certain, for instance, that she would be able to redeem her promise to
Raphael to sit in judgment upon the Academy and other picture galleries
that bloomed in May. At any rate, once she had severed connection with
the Goldsmith circle, she would not care to renew it, even in the case
of Raphael. No, it was best to get this last duty off her shoulders,
then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her
brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the
precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to
him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon
the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to
receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its