d of her voice, and the
beseeching glance of her loving eyes, were food and drink to him. He
knew that her presence refreshed him and cooled him--made him young
as he was growing old, and filled his mind with sweet thoughts which
hardly came to him but when she was with him. He had told himself over
and over again that it must be good for him to have such a one for his
wife, whether she were Jew or Christian. He knew himself to be a better
man when she was with him than at other moments of his life. And then
he loved her. He was thinking of her hourly, though his impatience to
see her was not as hers to be with him. He loved her. But yet--yet--
what if she should be deceiving him? To be able to deceive others, but
never to be deceived himself, was to him, unconsciously, the glory
which he desired. To be deceived was to be disgraced. What was all his
wit and acknowledged cunning if a girl--a Christian girl--could outwit
him? For himself, he could see clearly enough into things to be
aware that, as a rule, he could do better by truth than he could by
falsehood. He was not prone to deceive others. But in such matters he
desired ever to have the power with him to keep, as it were, the upper
hand. He would fain read the hearts of others entirely, and know their
wishes, and understand their schemes, whereas his own heart and his own
desires and his own schemes should only be legible in part. What if,
after all, he were unable to read the simple tablets of this girl's
mind--tablets which he had regarded as being altogether in his own
keeping?

He went forth for a while, walking slowly through the streets, as he
thought of this, wandering without an object, but turning over in his
mind his father's words. He knew that his father was anxious to prevent
his marriage. He knew that every Jew around him--for now the Jews
around him had all heard of it--was keenly anxious to prevent so great
a disgrace. He knew all that his father had threatened, and he was well
aware how complete was his father's power. But he could stand against
all that, if only Nina were true to him. He would go away from Prague.
What did it matter? Prague was not all the world. There were cities
better, nobler, richer than Prague, in which his brethren, the Jews,
would not turn their backs upon him because he had married a Christian.
It might be that he would have to begin the world again; but for that,
too, he would be prepared. Nina had shown that she could be