He had said to himself, “Cui bono?”

He had the sensitive nature’s dislike of mingling intimately in the affairs of others, and moreover he felt instinctively that if he tried to play a true friend’s part to Nigel, he might lose Nigel as a friend.  His clear insight would be antagonistic to Nigel’s blind enthusiasm, his calm worldly knowledge would seem only frigid cruelty to Nigel’s generosity and eagerness in pity.  And, besides, Isaacson had a strong personal repulsion from Mrs. Chepstow, a repulsion almost physical.

The part of him that was Jewish understood the part of her that was greedy far too well.  And he disliked, while he secretly acknowledged, his own Jewishness.  He seldom showed this dislike, even subtly, to the world and never showed it crudely, as do many of Jewish blood, by a strange and hideous anti-Semitism.  But it was always alive within him, always in conflict with something belonging to his nature’s artistic side, a world-feeling to which race-feeling seemed stupid and very small.  The triumphs of art aroused this world-feeling within him, and in his love of art he believed that he touched his highest point.  As Isaacson’s mental unconventionality put him en rapport with Nigel, his Jewishness, very differently, put him en rapport with her.  There is a communion of repulsion as well as a communion of affection.  Isaacson knew that Mrs. Chepstow and he could be linked by their dislike.  His instinct was to avoid her, not to let this link be formed.  Subsequent circumstances made him ask himself whether men do not often call things towards them with the voices of their fears.

The season was waning fast, was nearly at an end, when one night, very late, Nigel called in Cleveland Square.  Isaacson had just come back from dining with the Dean of Waynfleet when the bell rang.  He feared a professional summons, and was relieved when a sleepy servant asked if he would see Mr. Armine.  They met in a small, upstairs room where Isaacson sat at night, a room lined with books, cosy, but perhaps a little oppressive.  As Nigel came in quickly with a light coat over his arm and a crush hat in his hand, a clock on the mantel piece struck one.

“I caught sight of you just now in St. James’s Street in your motor, or I wouldn’t have come so late,” Nigel said.  “Were you going straight to bed?  Tell me the truth.  If you were, I’ll be off.”

“I don’t think I was.  I’ve been dining out, and should have had to read something.  That’s why you kept your coat?”

“To demonstrate my good intention.  Well!”

He put the coat and hat on a chair.

“Will you have anything?”

“No, thanks.”

Nigel sat down in an arm-chair.

“I’ve seen so little of you, Isaacson.  And I’m going away to-morrow.”

“You’ve had enough of it?”

“More than enough.”

Isaacson was sitting by a table on which lay a number of books.  Now and then he touched one with his long and sallow fingers, lifted its cover, then let it drop mechanically.