'You know I don't mean that,' he said desperately. 'Couldn't we be more than friends? Couldn't we commence again--where we left off?'

'How do you mean?' she murmured.

'Why are you so cold to me?' he burst out. 'Why do you make it so hard for me to speak? You know I love you; that I fell in love with you all over again last night. I never really forgot you; you were always deep down in my breast. All that I said about steadying me wasn't a lie. I felt that, too. But the real thing I feel is the need of you. I want you to care for me as I care for you. You used to, Esther; you know you did.'

'I know nothing of the kind,' said Esther; 'and I can't understand why a young fellow like you wants to bother his head with such ideas.

You've got to make your way in the world.'

'I know, I know; that's why I want you. I didn't tell you the exact truth last night, Esther, but I must really earn some money soon. All that two thousand is used up, and I only get along by squeezing some money out of the old man every now and again. Don't frown; he got a rise of screw three years ago, and can well afford it. Now, that's what I said to myself last night: if I were engaged, it would be an incentive to earning something.'

'For a Jewish young man you are fearfully unpractical,' said Esther, with a forced smile. 'Fancy proposing to a girl without even prospects of prospects.'

'Oh, but I _have_ got prospects. I tell you I shall make no end of money on the stage.'

'Or no beginning,' she said, finding the facetious vein easiest.

'No fear. I know I've got as much talent as Bob Andrews (he admits it himself) and _he_ draws his thirty quid a week.'

'Wasn't that the man who appeared at the police-court the other day for being drunk and disorderly?'

'Y-e-es,' admitted Leonard, a little disconcerted. 'He is a very good fellow, but he loses his head when he's in liquor.'

'I wonder you can care for society of that sort,' said Esther.

'Perhaps you're right. They're not a very refined lot. I tell you what, I'd like to go on the stage, but I'm not mad on it, and if you only say the word I'll give it up. There! And I'll go on with my law studies, honour bright I will!'

'I should, if I were you,' she said.

'Yes, but I can't do it without encouragement. Won't you say "Yes"?

Let's strike the bargain. I'll stick to law, and you'll stick to me.'

She shook her head.

'I am afraid I could not promise anything you mean. As I said before, I shall always be glad to see you. If you do well, no one will rejoice more than I.'

'Rejoice! What's the good of that to me? I want you to care for me; I want to look forward to your being my wife.'

'Really I cannot take advantage of a moment of folly like this. You don't know what you're saying. You saw me last night after many years, and in your gladness at seeing an old friend you flare up and fancy you're in love with me. Why, who ever heard of such foolish haste? Go back to your studies, and in a day or two you will find the flame sinking as rapidly as it leapt up.'

'No, no! Nothing of the kind!' His voice was thicker and there was real pa.s.sion in it. She grew dearer to him as the hope of her love receded. 'I couldn't forget you. I care for you awfully. I realised last night that my feeling for you is quite unlike what I have ever felt towards any other girl. Don't say no! Don't send me away despairing. I can hardly realise that you have grown so strange and altered. Surely you oughtn't to put on any side with me. Remember the times we have had together.'

'I remember,' she said gently. 'But I do not want to marry anyone; indeed I don't.'

'Then, if there is no one else in your thoughts, why shouldn't it be me? There! I won't press you for an answer now. Only don't say it's out of the question.'

'I'm afraid I must.'

'No, you mustn't, Esther--you mustn't!' he exclaimed excitedly. 'Think of what it means for me! You are the only Jewish girl I shall ever care for; and father would be pleased if I were to marry you. You know if I wanted to marry a _Shiksah_ there'd be awful rows. Don't treat me as if I were some outsider with no claim upon you. I believe we should get on splendidly together, you and me. We've been through the same sort of thing in childhood; we should understand each other, and be in sympathy with each other in a way I could never be with another girl, and I doubt if you could with another fellow.'

The words burst from him like a torrent, with excited, foreign-like gestures. Esther's headache was coming on badly.

'What would be the use of my deceiving you?' she said gently. 'I don't think I shall ever marry. I'm sure I could never make you--or any one else--happy. Won't you let me be your friend?'

'Friend!' he echoed bitterly. 'I know what it is--I'm poor! I've got no money-bags to lay at your feet. You're like all the Jewish girls, after all. But I only ask you to wait--I shall have plenty of money by-and-by. Who knows what more luck my father might drop in for? There are lots of rich religious cranks. And then I'll work hard, honour bright I will.'

'Pray be reasonable,' said Esther quietly. 'You know you are talking at random. Yesterday this time you had no idea of such a thing. To-day you are all on fire. To-morrow you will forget all about it.'

'Never! Never!' he cried. 'Haven't I remembered you all these years?

They talk of man's faithlessness and woman's faithfulness. It seems to me it's all the other way. Women are a deceptive lot.'

'You know you have no right whatever to talk like that to me!' said Esther, her sympathy beginning to pa.s.s over into annoyance. 'To-morrow you will be sorry. Hadn't you better go before you give yourself--and me--more cause for regret?'

'Ho! you are sending me away, are you?' he said in angry surprise.

'I am certainly suggesting it as the wisest course.'

'Oh, don't give me any of your fine phrases!' he said brutally. 'I see what it is--I've made a mistake. You're a stuck-up, conceited little thing! You think because you live in a grand house n.o.body is good enough for you! But what are you, after all? A _Schnorrer_--that's all! A _Schnorrer_ living on the charity of strangers. If I mix with grand folks, it is as an independent man and an equal; but you, rather than marry any one who mightn't be able to give you carriages and footmen, you prefer to remain a _Schnorrer_!'

Esther was white, and her lips trembled.

'Now I must ask you to go,' she said.

'All right--don't flurry yourself!' he said savagely. 'You don't impress me with your airs. Try them on people who don't know what you were--a _Schnorrer's_ daughter! Yes, your father was always a _Schnorrer_, and you are his child. It's in the blood. Ha! ha! ha!

Moses Ansell's daughter! Moses Ansell's daughter--a pedlar, who went about the country with bra.s.s jewellery and stood in the Lane with lemons, and _schnorred_ half-crowns of my father! You took jolly good care to ship him off to America, but 'pon my honour! you can't expect others to forget him as quickly as you. It's a rich joke, you refusing me! You're not fit for me to wipe my shoes on. My mother never cared for me to go to your garret; she said I must mix with my equals, and goodness knew what disease I might pick up in the dirt. 'Pon my honour the old girl was right.'

'She _was_ right!' Esther was stung into retorting. 'You must mix only with your equals. Please leave the room now, or else I shall.'

His face changed. His frenzy gave way to a momentary shock of consternation as he realised what he had done.

'No, no, Esther! I was mad; I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't mean it. Forget it.'

'I cannot. It was quite true,' she said bitterly. 'I am only a _Schnorrer's_ daughter. Well, are you going, or must I?'

He muttered something inarticulate, then seized his hat sulkily, and went to the door without looking at her.

'You have forgotten something,' she said.

He turned; her forefinger pointed to the bouquet on the table. He had a fresh access of rage at the sight of it, jerked it contemptuously to the floor with a sweep of his hat, and stamped upon it. Then he rushed from the room and an instant after she heard the hall-door slam.

She sank against the table, sobbing nervously. It was her first proposal. A _Schnorrer_, and the daughter of a _Schnorrer_! Yes, that was what she was. And she had even repaid her benefactors with deception. What hopes could she yet cherish? In literature she was a failure; the critics gave her few gleams of encouragement, while all her acquaintances, from Raphael downwards, would turn and rend her, should she dare declare herself. Nay, she was ashamed of herself for the mischief she had wrought. No one in the world cared for her; she was quite alone. The only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue--'A little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches.' Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right! She ought to think herself lucky to get him. Again, she asked herself, what had existence to offer her? Gradually her sobs ceased; she remembered to-night would be _Seder_ night, and her thoughts, so violently turned Ghetto-wards, went back to that night, soon after poor Benjamin's death, when she sat before the garret-fire striving to picture the larger life of the Future.

Well, this was the Future!

CHAPTER VIII