.'

Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the sensitive artist,
the Rembrandtesque figure prayed on: '_And rebuild Jerusalem, the holy
city, speedily and in our days...._'

It was the climax of the romance that had so strangely stolen over the
British dinner-table. Rebuild Jerusalem to-day! Did Jews really
conceive it as a contemporary possibility? Barstein went hot and cold.
The idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as a boy he had not
understood his own prayers or his own people. All his imagination was
inflamed. He conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir
Asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his daughter: the
great Empire that would spring from the unity and liberty of a race
which even under dispersion and oppression was one of the most potent
peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at last rose, he was
in so deep a reverie that he almost forgot to rise too, and when he
did rise, he accompanied the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss
Aaronsberg's tactful 'Don't you want to smoke?' that saved him.

'Almost as long a grace as the dinner!' Tom Fuller murmured to him as
he returned to the table. 'Do the Jews say that after every meal?'

'They're supposed to,' Barstein replied, a little jarred as he picked
up a cigar.

'No wonder they beat the Christians,' observed the young Radical, who
evidently took original views. 'So much time for digestion would
enable any race to survive in this age of quick lunches. In America,
now they should rule the roast. Literally,' he added, with a laugh.

'It's a beautiful grace,' said Barstein rebukingly. 'The glamour of
Zion thrown over the prose of diet.'

'You're not a Jew?' said Tom, with a sudden suspicion.

'Yes, I am,' the artist replied with a dignity that surprised himself.

'I should never have taken you for one!' said Tom ingenuously.

Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 'But why?' he
asked himself instantly. 'To feel complimented at not being taken for
a Jew--what does it mean? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my
nature? Has our race reached self-contempt?'

'I beg your pardon,' Tom went on. 'I didn't mean to be irreverent. I
appreciate the picturesqueness of it all--hearing the very language of
the Bible, and all that. And I do sympathize with your desire for
Jewish Home Rule.'

'My desire?' murmured the artist, taken aback. Sir Asher here
interrupted them by pressing his '48 port u