A sudden inspiration leapt to his heart. She should not have to wait
for his death to be happy; he would _live_ to see her happy. He would
pretend that her marriage cost him no pang; indeed, would not truly
the pang be swallowed up in the thought of her happiness? But _would_
she be happy? _Could_ she be happy with this alien? Ah, there was the
chilling doubt! If a quarrel came, would not the man always throw it
in her face that she was a Jewess? Well, that must be left to herself.
She was old enough not to rush into misery. Through all these years he
had taken her pensive brow as the seat of all wisdom, her tender eyes
as the glow of all goodness, and he could not suddenly readjust
himself to a contradictory conception. By the time she came in he had
composed himself for his task.
"Ah, my dear," he said, with a beaming smile, "I have heard the good
news."
The answering smile died out of her eyes. She looked frightened.
"It's all right, little Schnapsie," he said roguishly. "So now I shall
have seven sons-in-law. And Alfred the Second, eh?"
"You have heard?"
"Yes," he said, pinching her ear. "Thinks she can keep anything from
her old father, does she?"
"But do you know that he is a--a--"
"A Christian? Of course. What's the difference, as long as he's a good
man, eh?" He laughed noisily.
Little Schnapsie looked more frightened than ever. Were her father's
wits wandering at last?
"But I thought--"
"Thought I would want you to sacrifice yourself! No, no, my dear; we
are not in India, where women are burnt alive to please their dead
husbands."
Little Schnapsie had an irrelevant vision of herself treading on
diamonds and gold. She murmured, "Who told you?"
"Leah."
"Leah! But Leah is angry about it!"
"So she is. She came to me in a tantrum, but I told her whatever
little Schnapsie did was right."
"Father!" With a sudden cry of belief and affection she fell on his
neck and kissed him. "But isn't the darling old Jew shocked?" she
said, half smiling, half weeping.
Cunning lent him clairvoyance. "How much Judaism is there in your
sisters' husbands?" he said. "And without the religion, what is the
use of the race?"
"Why, father, that's what I'm always preaching!" she cried, in
astonishment. "Think what our Judaism was in the dear old Portsmouth
days. What is the Sabbath here? A mockery. Not one of your sons-in-law
closes his business. But there, when the Sabbath came in, how
beautiful! Gradually it glided, glided; you heard the angel's wings.
Then its shining presence was upon you, and a holy peace settled over
the house."
"Yes, yes." His eyes filled with tears. He saw the row of innocent
girl faces at the white Sabbath table. What had London and prosperity
brought him instead?
"And then the Atonement days, when the ram's horn thrilled us with a
sense of sin and judgment, when we thought the heavenly scrolls were
being signed and sealed. Who feels that here, father? Some of us don't
even fast."
"True, true." He forgot his part. "Then you are a good Jewess still?"
She shook her head sadly. "We have outlived our destiny. Our isolation
is a meaningless relic."
But she had kindled a new spark of hope.
"Can't you bring him over to us?"
"To what? To our empty synagogues?"
"Then you are going over to him?" He tried to keep his voice steady.
"I must; his father is an archdeacon."
"I know, I know," he said, though she might as well have said an
archangel.
"But you do not believe in--in--"
"I believe in self-sacrifice; that is Christianity."
"Is it? I thought it was three Gods."
"That is not the essential."
"Thank God!" he said. Then he added hurriedly: "But will you be happy
with him? Such different bringing up! You can't really feel close to
him."
She laughed and blushed. "There are deeper things than one's bringing
up, father."
"But if after marriage you should have a quarrel, he would always
throw up to you that you are a Jewess."
"No, Alfred will never do that."
"Then make haste, little Schnapsie, or your old father won't live to
see you under the canopy."
She smiled happily, believing him. "But there won't be any canopy,"
she said.
"Well, well, whatever it is," he laughed back, with horrid imagining
that it might be a Cross.