“I do not know,” replied Truda very calmly.  She took a chair beside the child, leaving him standing, and put a long white hand on the little tumbled head.

“It is incredible!” he said.  “Incredible!  And at such a time as this, too.  What do you propose to do with the child?”

“I do not know,” answered Truda again.

“It will be claimed,” he said, biting his nails.  “These Jews are never short of relatives.”

“If it is claimed by a relative, that will be the end of the matter,” replied Truda.  “If not—­we shall see.”

“Then let us hope it will be claimed,” he said quickly.  He gazed absently at the child, and shook his head.  “Ah, Madame,” he said, “if only one could cut an actress’s heart out!  The worst of them is, they are all woman, even the greatest.”

Truda smiled a little.  “That is inconvenient, no doubt,” she suggested.

“Inconvenient!” He hoisted his shoulders in a mighty shrug.  “It is devastating, Madame.  See now!  Here is this city—­a beastly place, it is true, but with much money, and very busy exterminating Jews.  Which will you, Madame—­its money or its Jews?  You see the choice!  But I will weary you no longer; the child will assuredly be claimed.”

He bowed and took his departure; it was not well, he knew, for any manager to push Truda Schottelius too far.  Therefore he went to make it known that a Jewish baby of two or thereabouts was to be had for the asking, at the hotel; and Truda went to work to make her newly-found responsibility comfortable.  For that night she experienced what a great artist must often miss—­something with a flavor more subtle than the realization of a strong role, than passion, than success.  It was when the baby was sleeping in her own bed, its combed head dinting one of her own white pillows, that she looked across to her deft, tactful maid.

“I believe I have found a new sensation, Marie,” she remarked.

The maid smiled.  “I had little sisters,” she answered inconsequently.

“Yes?” said Truda.  “I had nothing—­not even a little sister.”

The new sensation remained with her that night, for the baby slumbered peacefully in her arms; and several times she awoke to bend above it and wonder, with happiness and longing, over the miracle of that little dependent life cast away on the shores of the world.  By morning its companionship had so wrought in her that she could have given the manager a clear answer if he had come again to ask what she proposed to do with the child in the event of no one claiming it.  But he did not come.  Instead, there came a big red-haired young Jew, asserting that he was the child’s uncle.