'Well, fill my pipe for me,' he said, with an audacious inspiration. He felt an unreasoning impulse to touch her hand, to smooth her soft cheek with his fingers, and press her eyelids down over her dancing eyes. She filled the pipe, full measure and running over; he took it by the stem, her warm gloved fingers grazing his chilly bare hand and suffusing him with a delicious thrill. 'Now you must crown your work,' he said. 'The matches are somewhere about.' She hunted again, interpolating exclamations of reproof at the risk of fire. 'They're safety matches, I think,' he said. They proved to be wax vestas. She gave him a liquid glance of mute reproach that filled him with bliss as overbrimmingly as his pipe had been filled with bird's-eye; then she struck a match, protecting the flame scientifically in the hollow of her little hand. Raphael had never imagined a wax vesta could be struck so charmingly. She tip-toed to reach the bowl in his mouth, but he bent his tall form and felt her breath upon his face. The volumes of smoke curled up triumphantly, and Esther's serious countenance relaxed in a smile of satisfaction. She resumed the conversation where it had been broken off by the idyllic interlude of the pipe. 'But if you can't leave London, there's plenty of recreation to be had in town. I'll wager you haven't yet been to see _Hamlet_, in lieu of the night you disappointed us.' 'Disappointed myself, you mean,' he said, with a retrospective consciousness of folly. 'No, to tell the truth, I haven't been out at all lately. Life is so short.' 'Then, why waste it?' 'Oh, come, I can't admit I waste it,' he said, with a gentle smile that filled her with a penetrating emotion. 'You mustn't take such material views of life.' Almost in a whisper he quoted, '"To him that hath the kingdom of God all things shall be added"'; and went on, 'Socialism is, at least, as important as Shakespeare.' 'Socialism!' she repeated. 'Are you a Socialist, then?' 'Of a kind,' he answered. 'Haven't you detected the cloven hoof in my leaders? I'm not violent, you know; don't be alarmed. But I have been doing a little mild propagandism lately in the evenings--Land Nationalisation and a few other things which would bring the world more into harmony with the Law of Moses.' 'What! do you find Socialism, too, in orthodox Judaism?' 'It requires no seeking.' 'Well, you're almost as bad as my father, who found everything in the Talmud. At this rate you will certainly convert me soon; or, at least, I shall, like M. Jourdain, discover I've been orthodox all my life without knowing it!' 'I hope so,' he said gravely. 'But have you Socialistic sympathies?'