“He has let that off on me already, supplemented by the explanation that every extensive Jewish family embraces a genius and a lunatic.  He admits that he is the genius.  The unfortunate part for me,” ended Raphael, laughing, “is, that he is a genius.”

“I saw two of his little things the other day at the Impressionist Exhibition in Piccadilly.  They are very clever and dashing.”

“I am told he draws ballet-girls,” said Raphael, moodily.

“Yes, he is a disciple of Degas.”

“You don’t like that style of art?” he said, a shade of concern in his voice.

“I do not,” said Esther, emphatically.  “I am a curious mixture.  In art, I have discovered in myself two conflicting tastes, and neither is for the modern realism, which I yet admire in literature.  I like poetic pictures, impregnated with vague romantic melancholy; and I like the white lucidity of classic statuary.  I suppose the one taste is the offspring of temperament, the other of thought; for intellectually, I admire the Greek ideas, and was glad to hear you correct Sidney’s perversion of the adjective.  I wonder,” she added, reflectively, “if one can worship the gods of the Greeks without believing in them.”

“But you wouldn’t make a cult of beauty?”

“Not if you take beauty in the narrow sense in which I should fancy your cousin uses the word; but, in a higher and broader sense, is it not the one fine thing in life which is a certainty, the one ideal which is not illusion?”

“Nothing is illusion,” said Raphael, earnestly.  “At least, not in your sense.  Why should the Creator deceive us?”

“Oh well, don’t let us get into metaphysics.  We argue from different platforms,” she said.  “Tell me what you really came about in connection with the Flag.”

“Mr. Goldsmith was kind enough to suggest that you might write for it.”

“What!” exclaimed Esther, sitting upright in her arm-chair.  “I?  I write for an orthodox paper?”

“Yes, why not?”

“Do you mean I’m to take part in my own conversion?”

“The paper is not entirely religious,” he reminded her.

“No, there are the advertisements.” she said slily.

“Pardon me,” he said.  “We don’t insert any advertisements contrary to the principles of orthodoxy.  Not that we are much tempted.”

“You advertise soap,” she murmured.

“Oh, please!  Don’t you go in for those cheap sarcasms.”

“Forgive me,” she said.  “Remember my conceptions of orthodoxy are drawn mainly from the Ghetto, where cleanliness, so far from being next to godliness, is nowhere in the vicinity.  But what can I do for you?”

“I don’t know.  At present the staff, the Flag-staff as Sidney calls it, consists of myself and a sub-editor, who take it in turn to translate the only regular outside contributor’s articles into English.”

“Who’s that?”