and so much concerns you!"

"If she has not told me, it is because she does not want me to know," he
observed placidly.

"But what if she tells him!" persisted Cesarine.

"She would not let her lover know the state of her heart without
informing her father; she would commence with me."

The wife smiled cynically at such unlimited trust and felt her hatred of
Rebecca augment.

"There are not many fathers like you!"

"Nor many daughters like her," he retorted proudly. "I am of the opinion
that there is a mistake in the French mode of educating girls. The truth
about everything should be told them, as is done to their brothers. The
ignorance in which they are left often arises from their parents
themselves not knowing the causes and end of things, or have no time, or
have lost the right to speak of everything to their children from their
own errors or passions. My wife was the best of women and I believe
Rebecca takes after her. When she was of the age of comprehension, I
began to explain the world to her simply and clearly. All of heaven's
work is noble; no human soul--even a virgin's--has the right to be
shocked by any feature of it. Rebecca aided me when I sought to make a
livelihood by the profession of music, to which she had strong
proclivities."

Clemenceau was listening in courtesy to this argument, and the false
Marseillais did not lose a word--or a sip of his Kirschwasser.

"Afterward, when my ideas changed, and I could make my way to fortune by
a thoroughfare, less under the public eye, I associated her in my
studies. She knows," proceeded Daniels, who had shaken off a spell of
taciturnity which the stranger and Madame Clemenceau had inspired, and
seemed unable to pause, "she knows that nothing can be destroyed, and
that all undergoes transformation, and cannot cease to exists with the
exception of evil which diminishes as it goes on its way."

Cantagnac slowly absorbed another glass of the cherry cordial, which he
had to pour out himself as Rebecca had retired to a corner where the
host turned over the leaves of photographic album as a cover to their
dialogue.

"If my daughter loves," continued Daniels, seeing at last that his theme
was too abstruse for his single auditor, "as you conjectured, dear
madame, it is surely some honorable person worthy of that love; if she
has not informed me it is because there is some obstacle, such as the
man's not loving her or being bound to another woman. In any c