“I will answer you as I did in writing. Have you considered that you are a Christian; that she is a Jewess?”
It was the first gun and the answering shot of a strenuous battle.
“And you, my child?” he addressed her in the old sweet way that she had missed in the afternoon.
“I have also done so to the best of my ability.”
“Then you have found it raised no barrier to your desire to become Dr. Kemp’s wife?”
The two men drew a deep breath at the sound of the little decisive word, but with a difference. Kemp’s face shone exultantly. Levice pressed his lips hard together as the shuddering breath left him; his heavy-veined hands were tightly clinched; when he spoke, however, his voice was quite peaceful.
“It is an old and just custom for parents to be consulted by their children upon their choice of husband or wife. In France the parents are consulted before the daughter; it is not a bad plan. It often saves some unnecessary pangs--for the daughter. I am sorry in this case that we are not living in France.”
“Then you object?” Kemp almost hurled the words at him.
“I crave your patience,” answered the old man, slowly; “I have grown accustomed to doing things deliberately, and will not be hurried in this instance. But as you have put the question, I may answer you now. I do most solemnly and seriously object.”
Ruth, sitting intently listening to her father, paled slowly. The doctor also changed color.
“My child,” Levice continued, looking her sadly in the face, “by allowing you to fall blindly into this trouble, without warning, with my apparent sanction for any relationship with Christians, I have done you a great wrong; I admit it with anguish. I ask your forgiveness.”
Dr. Kemp’s clinched hand came down with force upon his knee. He was white to the lips, for though Levice spoke so quietly, a strong decisiveness rang unmistakably in every word.
“Mr. Levice, I trust I am not speaking disrespectfully,” he began, his manly voice plainly agitated, “but I must say that it was a great oversight on your part when you threw your daughter, equipped as she is, into Christian society,--put her right in the way of loving or being loved by any Christian, knowing all along that such a state of affairs could lead to nothing. It was not only wrong, but, holding such views, it was cruel.”