es rose on the
hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this list, reeking
with each bloody historic field, recalling every regiment, British or
colonial; on and on in the reverent silence, till a black pall seemed
to descend, inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had never
dreamed so many of her brethren had died out there. Ah! surely they
were knit now, these races: their friendship sealed in blood!

As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed towards Simon and
seized his hand for an instant, whispering passionately: 'My lamb,
marry her--we are all English alike.'

Nor did she ever know that she had said these words in Yiddish!

XII

Now came an enchanting season of confidences; the mother, caught up in
the glow of this strange love, learning to see the girl through the
boy's eyes, though the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of
a plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The time was not ripe
yet for bringing Lucy and her together, he explained. In fact, he
hadn't actually proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for the
year of mourning to be up.

'But how will you be married?' she once asked.

'Oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly.

'But can't you make her a proselyte?' she ventured timidly.

He coloured. 'It would be absurd to suddenly start talking religion to
her.'

'But she knows you're a Jew.'

'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she
know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the
subject.'

'A crank? About Jews?'

'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are
responsible for the war--and that they leave the fighting to the
English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not
treated as we should be, considering----'

Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that,
when you yourself--when you saved his----'

'Well, I suppose just because he knows I _was_ fighting, he doesn't
think of me as a Jew. It's a bit illogical, I know.' And he smiled
ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'

'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the
photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a
property desk.

'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help
him into the saddle.'

'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to
the war?' she persisted. 'Wh