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mulberry bags outlet ? 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?" mulberry handbags outlet. ? "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. mulberry.. ? 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. ? But in proportion as the happiness at her beck and call dazzled her, so she recoiled from it. Bent on self-effacement, attuned to the peace of despair, she almost resented the solicitation to be happy; she had suffered so much that she had grown to think suffering her natural element, out of which she could not breathe; she was almost in love with misery. And in so sad a world was there not something ignoble about happiness, a selfish aloofness from the life of humanity? And, illogically blent with this questioning, and strengthening her recoil, was an obstinate conviction that there could never be happiness for her, a being of ignominious birth, without roots in life, futile, shadowy, out of relation to the tangible solidities of ordinary existence. To offer her a warm fireside seemed to be to tempt her to be false to something--she knew not what. Perhaps it was because the warm fireside was in the circle she had quitted, and her heart was yet bitter against it, finding no palliative even in the thought of a triumphant return. She did not belong to it; she was not of Raphael's world. But she felt grateful to the point of tears for his incomprehensible love for a plain, penniless, low-born girl. Surely, it was only his chivalry. Other men had not found her attractive. Sidney had not; Levi only fancied himself in love. And yet beneath all her humility was a sense of being loved for the best in her, for the hidden qualities Raphael alone had the insight to divine. She could never think so meanly of herself or of humanity again. He had helped and strengthened her for her lonely future; the remembrance of him would always be an inspiration, and a reminder of the nobler side of human nature. http://bnmblog.blogbus.com/logs/220908536.html