“I see that I must drop all flourishes and speak unfettered,” went on the major, bluntly.  “In two words, our brawl has got to the ears of the provost-marshal as well as those of the town guardians, and the search is going to be thorough for that young gentleman.  I know it is absurd, and I protested against it, but the idea has penetrated their wooden heads that he is one of those tramp-students who are permeating the masses—­worse, the dangerous classes—­with seditious ideas, and they think he and Baboushka’s gang too long lording it in the poor quarter, are hand and glove.  In fact, in a day or two—­perhaps now—­the forces will be a-foot in uniform and in disguise to make a keen and searching inspection of the dwellings suspected of harboring the liberal-minded; and God knows that you have, Herr Daniels, chosen a veritable hot-bed!  Two months ago, we arrested a Nihilist with a portmanteau full of glass bombs, luckily uncharged, in the attic upstairs; not three weeks since, two Hungarian malcontents were stopped at the door—­but why enter into these details, fitter for the police than a soldier to relate?  You, of course, were not told of these blots on this hotel’s fame or you would have selected it as the last roof to shelter your talented daughter.  It is one thing to cross swords—­I mean staves—­with a man, and another to guide the watchmen to clap their coarse paws on his shoulder.  I have made honorable amends, I hope, to the lady and yourself, for my rudeness; as for the gallant fellow, I bear him no ill will—­on the contrary! since I could wish to meet with him again, and tell him that the Great Prison of Munich is not badly constructed and promises little chance of an escape.  I beg you to convey the warning to him that he must lose not one instant if he can escape beyond the walls.”

Still Daniels believed it prudent, if not polite, to make no compromising admission.  But the speaker was not offended.  He smiled wisely, not without good humor, and offered his hand so frankly that the Jew again took it and this time slightly returned the generous pressure.

But on the way to the door, he was stopped by the entrance of Rebecca.  Although she was clad in the plain garments affected by the Jewess in ordinary days, and they were in the most striking contrast with the stage flippery in which the officer had previously seen her, her loveliness was as manifest as the stars when even a fleecy cloud veils them on an autumnal eve.  In her anxiety as regarded her father—­or, perhaps, the student, who can tell?—­she must have stooped to listening to some portion of the singular and one-sided dialogue.  For she said, without any prelude: 

“Herr Officer, you have acted a noble part and it would be a grief if I had not taken the occasion to accept your apology and thank you for the warning which may save the life of one who—­believe me—­is no longer your foe, if he had been one.  I am not able to judge the greatness and loftiness of your act from your people’s point of view, but I shall no longer have a mean opinion of the creed which can perform such a conversion as yours—­that is, making you a true gentleman instead of leading one to believe you a heartless libertine.”