Mrs. Bergstein bowed, murmured a greeting and indicated a little settee near the low chair into which she immediately subsided, her face still in shadow, the shape of her coiffure so much in keeping with the dress that Miriam could hardly refrain from departing then and there. She sat down, a schoolgirl waiting for judgment against which she was armed in advance, and yet helpless through her unenvious, scornful admiration. “I was much interested by your letter” said Mrs. Bergstein. The interview was at an end. There was no opening in the smooth close surface represented by the voice, through which questions could be driven home. She was smitten into silence where the sound of the voice echoed and re-echoed, whilst she fumbled for a suitable phrase, clinging to the memory of the statement, still somewhere, which she had come, so desperately, to hear and carry away and set down, a ray of light in the darkness of her revolving thoughts. A numb forgetfulness assailed her, threatening the disaster of irrelevance of speech or behaviour coming from the tides of expression she felt beating below it. She forced a murmured response from her lips, and the tumult was stilled to an echo that flung itself to and fro within, answering the echo of the woman’s voice on the air. She had caught hold and contributed. It was now the turn of the other to go on and confirm what she had revealed...... “Music is so _beautiful_--so _elevating_.” “That depends upon the music.” Never said. Kept treacherously back for the sake of things that might be lost in a clashing of opinions ... the things they never thought of in exercising their benevolence, and demanding in return acceptance of their views ... the light of a whole world condensed in the bright old town, the sweet chiming sound of it, coming in at the windows, restoring childhood, the expanses of leisure made by their small hard circle, a world of thoughtless ideas, turning a short week-end into a life, lived before, familiar, building out in the nerves a glorious vitality..... It was the same voice, the English lady’s voice, bringing all Christendom about her, all the traditions within which, so lately, she had felt herself committed steadfastly to tread. But there was something left out of it, a warmth was missing, it had not in it the glow that was in those other women’s voices, of kindliness towards the generous things they had secretly, willingly renounced. It had, instead, something that was like a cold clean blade thrusting into an intelligible future, something inexorable, founded not upon fixed ideas, but upon ideas, single and cold. This woman would not make concessions; she would always stand, uncompromisingly, in face of everyone, men and women, for the same things, clear cut, delicate and narrowly determining as her voice. “You are considering the possibility of embracing the Jewish faith?”