"Yes," said the poet, looking up eagerly, "and I am famous through the vorld. Metatoron's Flames vill shine eternally." His head drooped again. "I have all I vant, and you are the best man in the vorld. But I am the most miserable."
"Nonsense! cheer up," said Raphael.
"I can never cheer up any more. I vill shoot myself. I have realized the emptiness of life. Fame, money, love-all is Dead Sea fruit."
His shoulders heaved convulsively; he was sobbing. Raphael stood by helpless, his respect for Pinchas as a poet and for himself as a practical Englishman returning. He pondered over the strange fate that had thrown him among three geniuses-a male idealist, a female pessimist, and a poet who seemed to belong to both sexes and categories. And yet there was not one of the three to whom he seemed able to be of real service. A letter brought in by the office-boy rudely snapped the thread of reflection. It contained three enclosures. The first was an epistle; the hand was the hand of Mr. Goldsmith, but the voice was the voice of his beautiful spouse.
"DEAR MR. LEON:
"I have perceived many symptoms lately of your growing divergency
from the ideas with which The Flag of Judah was started. It is
obvious that you find yourself unable to emphasize the olden
features of our faith-the questions of kosher meat, etc.-as
forcibly as our readers desire. You no doubt cherish ideals which
are neither practical nor within the grasp of the masses to whom we
appeal. I fully appreciate the delicacy that makes you
reluctant-in the dearth of genius and Hebrew learning-to saddle
me with the task of finding a substitute, but I feel it is time for
me to restore your peace of mind even at the expense of my own. I
have been thinking that, with your kind occasional supervision, it
might be possible for Mr. Pinchas, of whom you have always spoken
so highly, to undertake the duties of editorship, Mr. Sampson
remaining sub-editor as before. Of course I count on you to
continue your purely scholarly articles, and to impress upon the
two gentlemen who will now have direct relations with me my wish to
remain in the background.
"Yours sincerely,
"HENRY GOLDSMITH.
"P.S.-On second thoughts I beg to enclose a cheque for four
guineas, which will serve instead of a formal month's notice, and
will enable you to accept at once my wife's invitation, likewise
enclosed herewith. Your sister seconds Mrs. Goldsmith in the hope
that you will do so. Our tenancy of the Manse only lasts a few
weeks longer, for of course we return for the New Year holidays."
This was the last straw. It was not so much the dismissal that staggered him, but to be called a genius and an idealist himself-to have his own orthodoxy impugned-just at this moment, was a rough shock.
"Pinchas!" he said, recovering himself. Pinchas would not look up. His face was still hidden in his hands. "Pinchas, listen! You are appointed editor of the paper, instead of me. You are to edit the next number."
Pinchas's head shot up like a catapult. He bounded to his feet, then bent down again to Raphael's coat-tail and kissed it passionately.
"Ah, my benefactor, my benefactor!" he cried, in a joyous frenzy. "Now vill I give it to English Judaism. She is in my power. Oh, my benefactor!"
"No, no," said Raphael, disengaging himself. "I have nothing to do with it."
"But de paper-she is yours!" said the poet, forgetting his English in his excitement.
"No, I am only the editor. I have been dismissed, and you are appointed instead of me."
Pinchas dropped back into his chair like a lump of lead. He hung his head again and folded his arms.
"Then they get not me for editor," he said moodily.
"Nonsense, why not?" said Raphael, flushing.
"Vat you think me?" Pinchas asked indignantly. "Do you think I have a stone for a heart like Gideon M.P. or your English stockbrokers and Rabbis? No, you shall go on being editor. They think you are not able enough, not orthodox enough-they vant me-but do not fear. I shall not accept."
"But then what will become of the next number?" remonstrated Raphael, touched. "I must not edit it."
"Vat you care? Let her die!" cried Pinchas, in gloomy complacency. "You have made her; vy should she survive you? It is not right another should valk in your shoes-least of all, I."
"But I don't mind-I don't mind a bit," Raphael assured him. Pinchas shook his head obstinately. "If the paper dies, Sampson will have nothing to live upon," Raphael reminded him.
"True, vairy true," said the poet, patently beginning to yield. "That alters things. Ve cannot let Sampson starve."
"No, you see!" said Raphael. "So you must keep it alive."
"Yes, but," said Pinchas, getting up thoughtfully, "Sampson is going off soon on tour vith his comic opera. He vill not need the Flag."
"Oh, well, edit it till then."
"Be it so," said the poet resignedly. "Till Sampson's comic-opera tour."
"Till Sampson's comic-opera tour," repeated Raphael contentedly.
CHAPTER XVI. LOVE'S TEMPTATION.
Raphael walked out of the office, a free man. Mountains of responsibility seemed to roll off his shoulders. His Messianic emotions were conscious of no laceration at the failure of this episode of his life; they were merged in greater. What a fool he had been to waste so much time, to make no effort to find the lonely girl! Surely, Esther must have expected him, if only as a friend, to give some sign that he did not share in the popular execration. Perchance she had already left London or the country, only to be found again by protracted knightly quest! He felt grateful to Providence for setting him free for her salvation. He made at once for the publishers' and asked for her address. The junior partner knew of no such person. In vain Raphael reminded him that they had published Mordecai Josephs. That was by Mr. Edward Armitage. Raphael accepted the convention, and demanded this gentleman's address instead. That, too, was refused, but all letters would be forwarded. Was Mr. Armitage in England? All letters would be forwarded. Upon that the junior partner stood, inexpugnable.
Raphael went out, not uncomforted. He would write to her at once. He got letter-paper at the nearest restaurant and wrote, "Dear Miss Ansell." The rest was a blank. He had not the least idea how to renew the relationship after what seemed an eternity of silence. He stared helplessly round the mirrored walls, seeing mainly his own helpless stare. The placard "Smoking not permitted till 8 P.M.," gave him a sudden shock. He felt for his pipe, and ultimately found it stuck, half full of charred bird's eye, in his breast-pocket. He had apparently not been smoking for some hours. That completed his perturbation. He felt he had undergone too much that day to be in a fit state to write a judicious letter. He would go home and rest a bit, and write the letter-very diplomatically-in the evening. When he got home, he found to his astonishment it was Friday evening, when letter-writing is of the devil. Habit carried him to synagogue, where he sang the Sabbath hymn, "Come, my beloved, to meet the bride," with strange sweet tears and a complete indifference to its sacred allegorical signification. Next afternoon he haunted the publishers' doorstep with the brilliant idea that Mr. Armitage sometimes crossed it. In this hope, he did not write the letter; his phrases, he felt, would be better for the inspiration of that gentleman's presence. Meanwhile he had ample time to mature them, to review the situation in every possible light, to figure Esther under the most poetical images, to see his future alternately radiant and sombre. Four long summer days of espionage only left him with a heartache, and a specialist knowledge of the sort of persons who visit publishers. A temptation to bribe the office-boy he resisted as unworthy.
Not only had he not written that letter, but Mr. Henry Goldsmith's edict and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's invitation were still unacknowledged. On Thursday morning a letter from Addie indirectly
reminded him both of his remissness to her hostess, and of the existence of The Flag of Judah. He remembered it was the day of going to press; a vision of the difficulties of the day flashed vividly upon his consciousness; he wondered if his ex-lieutenants were finding new ones. The smell of the machine-room was in his nostrils; it co-operated with the appeal of his good-nature to draw him to his successor's help. Virtue proved its own reward. Arriving at eleven o'clock, he found little Sampson in great excitement, with the fountain of melody dried up on his lips.-
"Thank God!" he cried. "I thought you'd come when you heard the news."
"What news?"
"Gideon the member for Whitechapel's dead. Died suddenly, early this morning."
"How shocking!" said Raphael, growing white.
"Yes, isn't it?" said little Sampson. "If he had died yesterday, I shouldn't have minded it so much, while to-morrow would have given us a clear week. He hasn't even been ill," he grumbled. "I've had to send Pinchas to the Museum in a deuce of a hurry, to find out about his early life. I'm awfully upset about it, and what makes it worse is a telegram from Goldsmith, ordering a page obituary at least with black rules, besides a leader. It's simply sickening. The proofs are awful enough as it is-my blessed editor has been writing four columns of his autobiography in his most original English, and he wants to leave out all the news part to make room for 'em. In one way Gideon's death is a boon; even Pinchas'll see his stuff must be crowded out. It's frightful having to edit your editor. Why wasn't he made sub?"
"That would have been just as trying for you," said Raphael with a melancholy smile. He took up a galley-proof and began to correct it. To his surprise he came upon his own paragraph about Strelitski's resignation: it caused him fresh emotion. This great spiritual crisis had quite slipped his memory, so egoistic are the best of us at times. "Please be careful that Pinchas's autobiography does not crowd that out," he said.
Pinchas arrived late, when little Sampson was almost in despair. "It is all right." he shouted, waving a roll of manuscript. "I have him from the cradle-the stupid stockbroker, the Man-of-the-Earth, who sent me back my poesie, and vould not let me teach his boy Judaism. And vhile I had the inspiration I wrote the leader also in the Museum-it is here-oh, vairy beautiful! Listen to the first sentence. 'The Angel of Death has passed again over Judaea; he has flown off vith our visest and our best, but the black shadow of his ving vill long rest upon the House of Israel.' And the end is vordy of the beginning. He is dead: but he lives for ever enshrined in the noble tribute to his genius in Metatoron's Flames."
Little Sampson seized the "copy" and darted with it to the composing-room, where Raphael was busy giving directions. By his joyful face Raphael saw the crisis was over. Little Sampson handed the manuscript to the foreman, then drawing a deep breath of relief, he began to hum a sprightly march.
"I say, you're a nice chap!" he grumbled, cutting himself short with a staccato that was not in the music.
"What have I done?" asked Raphael.
"Done? You've got me into a nice mess. The guvnor-the new guvnor, the old guvnor, it seems-called the other day to fix things with me and Pinchas. He asked me if I was satisfied to go on at the same screw. I said he might make it two pound ten. 'What, more than double?' says he. 'No, only nine shillings extra,' says I, 'and for that I'll throw in some foreign telegrams the late editor never cared for.' And then it came out that he only knew of a sovereign, and fancied I was trying it on."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Raphael, in deep scarlet distress.
"You must have been paying a guinea out of your own pocket!" said little Sampson sharply.
Raphael's confusion increased. "I-I-didn't want it myself," he faltered. "You see, it was paid me just for form, and you really did the work. Which reminds me I have a cheque of yours now," he ended boldly. "That'll make it right for the coming month, anyhow."
He hunted out Goldsmith's final cheque, and tendered it sheepishly.
"Oh no, I can't take it now," said little Sampson. He folded his arms, and drew his cloak around him like a toga. No August sun ever divested little Sampson of his cloak.
"Has Goldsmith agreed to your terms, then?" inquired Raphael timidly.
"Oh no, not he. But-"
"Then I must go on paying the difference," said Raphael decisively. "I am responsible to you that you get the salary you're used to; it's my fault that things are changed, and I must pay the penalty," He crammed the cheque forcibly into the pocket of the toga.
"Well, if you put it in that way," said little Sampson, "I won't say I couldn't do with it. But only as a loan, mind."
"All right," murmured Raphael.
"And you'll take it back when my comic opera goes on tour. You won't back out?"
"No."
"Give us your hand on it," said little Sampson huskily. Raphael gave him his hand, and little Sampson swung it up and down like a baton.
"Hang it all! and that man calls himself a Jew!" he thought. Aloud he said: "When my comic opera goes on tour."
They returned to the editorial den, where they found Pinchas raging, a telegram in his hand.
"Ah, the Man-of-the-Earth!" he cried. "All my beautiful peroration he spoils." He crumpled up the telegram and threw it pettishly at little Sampson, then greeted Raphael with effusive joy and hilarity. Little Sampson read the telegram. It ran as follows:
"Last sentence of Gideon leader. 'It is too early yet in this moment of grief to speculate as to his successor in the constituency. But, difficult as it will be to replace him, we may find some solace in the thought that it will not be impossible. The spirit of the illustrious dead would itself rejoice to acknowledge the special qualifications of one whose name will at once rise to every lip as that of a brother Jew whose sincere piety and genuine public spirit mark him out as the one worthy substitute in the representation of a district embracing so many of our poor Jewish brethren. Is it too much to hope that he will be induced to stand?' Goldsmith."
"That's a cut above Henry," murmured little Sampson, who knew nearly everything, save the facts he had to supply to the public. "He wired to the wife, and it's hers. Well, it saves him from writing his own puffs, anyhow. I suppose Goldsmith's only the signature, not intended to be the last word on the subject. Wants touching up, though; can't have 'spirit' twice within four lines. How lucky for him Leon is just off the box seat! That queer beggar would never have submitted to any dictation any more than the boss would have dared show his hand so openly."
While the sub-editor mused thus, a remark dropped from the editor's lips, which turned Raphael whiter than the news of the death of Gideon had done.
"Yes, and in the middle of writing I look up and see the maiden-oh, vairy beautiful! How she gives it to English Judaism sharp in that book-the stupid heads,-the Men-of-the-Earth! I could kiss her for it, only I have never been introduced. Gideon, he is there! Ho! ho!" he sniggered, with purely intellectual appreciation of the pungency.
"What maiden? What are you talking about?" asked Raphael, his breath coming painfully.
"Your maiden," said Pinchas, surveying him with affectionate roguishness. "The maiden that came to see you here. She was reading; I walk by and see it is about America."
"At the British Museum?" gasped Raphael. A thousand hammers beat "Fool!" upon his brain. Why had he not thought of so likely a place for a litterateur?
He rushed out of the office and into a hansom. He put his pipe out in anticipation. In seven minutes he was at the gates, just in time-heaven be thanked!-to meet her abstractedly descending the steps. His heart gave a great leap of joy. He studied the pensive little countenance for an instant before it became aware of him; its sadness shot a pang of reproach through him. Then a great light, as of wonder and joy, came into the dark eyes, and glorified the pale, passionate face. But it was only a flash that faded, leaving the cheeks more pallid than before, the lips quivering.
"Mr. Leon!" she muttered.
He raised his hat, then held out a trembling hand that close
d upon hers with a grip that hurt her.
"I'm so glad to see you again!" he said, with unconcealed enthusiasm. "I have been meaning to write to you for days-care of your publishers. I wonder if you will ever forgive me!"
"You had nothing to write to me," she said, striving to speak coldly.
"Oh yes, I had!" he protested.
She shook her head.
"Our journalistic relations are over-there were no others."
"Oh!" he said reproachfully, feeling his heart grow chill. "Surely we were friends?"
She did 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."
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