Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/129

 surely, thought Somers, it is Jewish blood. The very best that is in the Jewish blood: a faculty for pure disinterestedness, and warm, physically warm love, that seems to make the corpuscles of the blood glow. And after the smile his face went stupid and kangaroo-like, pendulous, with the eyes close together above the long, drooping nose. But the shape of the head was very beautiful, small, light, and fine. The man had surely Jewish blood. And he was almost purely kind, essential kindliness, embodied in an ancient, unscrupulous shrewdness. He was so shrewd, so clever. And with a rogue or a mean man, absolutely unscrupulous. But for any human being who showed himself sincere and vulnerable, his heart was pure in kindness. An extraordinary man. This pure kindliness had something Jehovah-like in it. And in every difficulty and every stress, he would remember it, his kindly love for real, vulnerable human beings. It had given his soul an absolute direction, whatever he said about relativity. Yet once he felt any man or woman was cold, mean, barren of this warmth which was in him, then he became at once utterly unscrupulous in defeating the creature. He was not angry or indignant. He was more like a real Jehovah. He had only to turn on all the levers and forces of his clever, almost fiendishly subtle will, and he could triumph. And he knew it. Somers had once had a Jewish friend with this wonderful, Jehovah-like kindliness, but also, without the shrewd fiendish subtlety of will. But it helped him to understand Cooley.

"Yes—I think the man sent me his book," said Somers. "I forget his name. I only remember there was a feverish adulation of Lord Something-or-other, and a terrible cri du cur about the mother of the people, the poor elderly woman in a battered black bonnet and a shawl, going out with six-pence ha'-penny to buy a shillings-worth of necessaries for the home."

"Just so," said Kangaroo, smiling again. "No doubt her husband drank. If he did, who can wonder."

"The very sight of her makes one want to shove her out of the house—or out of the world, for that matter," said Somers.

"Nay," said Jack. "She's enjoying her misery, dear old soul. Don't envy her her bits of pleasures."