“It is not very amusing to live among birds, beasts and reptiles,” said Cesarine.

“Ha, ha! but then those are stuffed,” exclaimed her opposite neighbor, showing that he was listening.

“Very likely, she cherishes some little fancy in her heart,” said Madame Clemenceau, thinking of both her husband and Antonino.

“Possibly,” said the Jew, complacently, for he knew that his daughter was very fair.

“I believe I know the object,” continued Madame Clemenceau.

“I am rather astonished that she should have told you, and not me.”

“Oh, she has not told me anything, I guessed.”

Daniels seemed relieved.

“And if you should like to hear the name,” she began rapidly, but he stopped her with a dignified smile.  “What, you do not want to know what I have found before you, 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.