He looked at her blankly.

“I’m stupid,” he said, “for I don’t know what compliment I missed paying.”

“If you regret it I shall not think so well of you,” she said.  “You know I’ve heard all about your brilliant success at Oxford.”

“They put all those petty little things in the Jewish papers, don’t they?”

“I read it in the Times,” retorted Esther.  “You took a double first and the prize for poetry and a heap of other things, but I noticed the prize for poetry, because it is so rare to find a Jew writing poetry.”

“Prize poetry is not poetry,” he reminded her.  “But, considering the Jewish Bible contains the finest poetry in the world, I do not see why you should be surprised to find a Jew trying to write some.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” answered Esther.  “What is the use of talking about the old Jews?  We seem to be a different race now.  Who cares for poetry?”

“Our poet’s scroll reaches on uninterruptedly through the Middle Ages.  The passing phenomenon of to-day must not blind us to the real traits of our race,” said Raphael.

“Nor must we be blind to the passing phenomenon of to-day,” retorted Esther.  “We have no ideals now.”

“I see Sidney has been infecting you,” he said gently.

“No, no; I beg you will not think that,” she said, flushing almost resentfully.  “I have thought these things, as the Scripture tells us to meditate on the Law, day and night, sleeping and waking, standing up and sitting down.”

“You cannot have thought of them without prejudice, then,” he answered, “if you say we have no ideals.”

“I mean, we’re not responsive to great poetry—­to the message of a Browning for instance.”

“I deny it.  Only a small percentage of his own race is responsive.  I would wager our percentage is proportionally higher.  But Browning’s philosophy of religion is already ours, for hundreds of years every Saturday night every Jew has been proclaiming the view of life and Providence in ‘Pisgah Sights.’”

    All’s lend and borrow,
      Good, see, wants evil,
    Joy demands sorrow,
      Angel weds devil.

“What is this but the philosophy of our formula for ushering out the Sabbath and welcoming in the days of toil, accepting the holy and the profane, the light and the darkness?”

“Is that in the prayer-book?” said Esther astonished.

“Yes; you see you are ignorant of our own ritual while admiring everything non-Jewish.  Excuse me if I am frank, Miss Ansell, but there are many people among us who rave over Italian antiquities but can see nothing poetical in Judaism.  They listen eagerly to Dante but despise David.”

“I shall certainly look up the liturgy,” said Esther.  “But that will not alter my opinion.  The Jew may say these fine things, but they are only a tune to him.  Yes, I begin to recall the passage in Hebrew—­I see my father making Havdolah—­the melody goes in my head like a sing-song.  But I never in my life thought of the meaning.  As a little girl I always got my conscious religious inspiration out of the New Testament.  It sounds very shocking, I know.”