ot have liked her.
She put her hand up for a moment to her rich brown tresses, and felt
them as she took joy in thinking that Anton Trendellsohn loved to look
upon fair beauty.

After a short while Anton Trendellsohn came down. To those who know
the outward types of his race there could be no doubt that Anton
Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was certainly a handsome
man, not now very young, having reached some year certainly in advance
of thirty, and his face was full of intellect. He was slightly made,
below the middle height, but was well made in every limb, with small
feet and hands, and small ears, and a well-turned neck. He was very
dark--dark as a man can be, and yet show no sign of colour in his
blood. No white man could be more dark and swarthy than Anton
Trendellsohn. His eyes, however, which were quite black, were very
bright. His jet-black hair, as it clustered round his ears, had in it
something of a curl. Had it been allowed to grow, it would almost have
hung in ringlets; but it was worn very short, as though its owner were
jealous even of the curl. Anton Trendellsohn was decidedly a handsome
man; but his eyes were somewhat too close together in his face, and the
bridge of his aquiline nose was not sharply cut, as is mostly the case
with such a nose on a Christian face. The olive oval face was without
doubt the face of a Jew, and the mouth was greedy, and the teeth were
perfect and bright, and the movement of the man's body was the movement
of a Jew. But not the less on that account had he behaved with
Christian forbearance to his Christian debtor, Josef Balatka, and with
Christian chivalry to Balatka's daughter, till that chivalry had turned
itself into love.

"Nina," he said, putting out his hand, and holding hers as he spoke, "I
hardly expected you this evening; but I am glad to see you--very glad."

"I hope I am not troubling you, Anton?"

"How can you trouble me? The sun does not trouble us when we want light
and heat."

"Can I give you light and heat?"

"The light and heat I love best, Nina."

"If I thought that--if I could really think that--I would be happy
still, and would mind nothing."

"And what is it you do mind?"

"There are things to trouble us, of course. When aunt Sophie says that
all of us have our troubles--even she--I suppose that even she speaks
the truth."

"Your aunt Sophie is a fool."

"I should not mind if she were only a fool. But a fool can sometimes be
r