Esther’s eyes filled with soft light.  She walked on in silence; then, noticing she had automatically walked too much in the direction of her place of concealment, she came to an abrupt stop.

“We must part here,” she said.  “If I ever come across my old shepherd in America, I will be nicer to him.  It is really quite heroic of him—­you must have exaggerated my own petty sacrifice alarmingly if it really supplied him with inspiration.  What is he going to do in America?”

“To preach a universal Judaism.  He is a born idealist; his ideas have always such a magnificent sweep.  Years ago he wanted all the Jews to return to Palestine.”

Esther smiled faintly, not at Strelitski, but at Raphael’s calling another man an idealist.  She had never yet done justice to the strain of common-sense that saved him from being a great man; he and the new Strelitski were of one breed to her.

“He will make Jews no happier and Christians no wiser,” she said sceptically.  “The great populations will sweep on, as little affected by the Jews as this crowd by you and me.  The world will not go back on itself—­rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit.  We are such a handful of outsiders.  Judaism—­old or new—­is a forlorn hope.”

“The forlorn hope will yet save the world,” he answered quietly, “but it has first to be saved to the world.”

“Be happy in your hope,” she said gently.  “Good-bye.”  She held out her little hand.  He had no option but to take it.

“But we are not going to part like this,” he said desperately.  “I shall see you again before you go to America?”

“No, why should you?”

“Because I love you,” rose to his lips.  But the avowal seemed too plump.  He prevaricated by retorting, “Why should I not?”

“Because I fear you,” was in her heart, but nothing rose to her lips.  He looked into her eyes to read an answer there, but she dropped them.  He saw his opportunity.

“Why should I not?” he repeated.

“Your time is valuable,” she said faintly.

“I could not spend it better than with you,” he answered boldly.

“Please don’t insist,” she said in distress.

“But I shall; I am your friend.  So far as I know, you are lonely.  If you are bent upon going away, why deny me the pleasure of the society I am about to lose for ever?”

“Oh, how can you call it a pleasure—­such poor melancholy company as I am!”

“Such poor melancholy company that I came expressly to seek it, for some one told me you were at the Museum.  Such poor melancholy company that if I am robbed of it life will be a blank.”

He had not let go her hand; his tones were low and passionate; the heedless traffic of the sultry London street was all about them.

Esther trembled from head to foot; she could not look at him.  There was no mistaking his meaning now; her breast was a whirl of delicious pain.