hosts going and coming: it's
on the border line. I just felt the creep. I think you did. The reason
is--there is always a material reason--that you were warm, and a bit of
chill breeze took you as you gazed; while for my part I was imagining
at that very moment what of all possible causes might separate us, and
I acknowledged that death could do the trick. But death, my love, is far
from us two!'

'Does she look as grimmish as she does in the photograph?' said
Clotilde.

'Who? the baroness?' Alvan laughed. The baroness was not so easily
defended from a girl as from her husband, it appeared. 'She is the best
of comrades, best of friends. She has her faults; may not relish the
writ announcing her final deposition, but be you true to me, and as
true as she has unfailingly been to me, she will be to you. That I can
promise. My poor Lucie! She is winter, if you will. It is not the winter
of the steppes; you may compare her to winter in a noble country; a fine
landscape of winter. The outlines of her face.... She has a great brain.
How much I owe that woman for instruction! You meet now and then men
who have the woman in them without being womanized; they are the pick of
men. And the choicest women are those who yield not a feather of their
womanliness for some amount of manlike strength. And she is one; man's
brain, woman's heart. I thought her unique till I heard of you. And how
do I stand between you two? She has the only fault you can charge me
with; she is before me in time, as I am before you. Shall I spoil you
as she spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy is the recognition of the
heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as much as I love my love.
I do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, support. You will not
rule me, but you will invigorate, and if you are petted, you shall not
be spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that undertakerly tree till my
years are one hundred. Even then it will be dangerous to repose beneath
my branches in the belief that I am sapless because I have changed
colour. We Jews have a lusty blood. We are strong of the earth. We
serve you, but you must minister to us. Sensual? We have truly excellent
appetites. And why not? Heroical too! Soldiers, poets, musicians; the
Gentile's masters in mental arithmetic--keenest of weapons: surpassing
him in common sense and capacity for brotherhood. Ay, and in charity; or
what stores of vengeance should we not have nourished! Already we have
the