Truda was at breakfast in her room when he arrived and was shown in; opposite to her at the table, the baby was making the most of various foods.  It greeted him with shouts and open welcome; no further proof was needed to establish his claim.  Truda, delicate and fragile in a morning wrapper, a slender vivid exotic of a woman, shaped as though by design to the service of art, looked up to scan him.  He stood just within the door, his peaked cap in his hand, great of stature, keen-faced, rugged, with steady eyes that took her in unwinkingly.  The pair of them made a contrast not the less grotesque because in each there was strength.  For some moments neither spoke, while the baby gurgled happily.

Truda sighed.  “She knows you,” she said.  “She is a dear little thing.”

The Jew nodded.  “She is dear to us,” he said.  “And we are very grateful to you, Excellency.”

He was still watching her with a shrewd scrutiny, as though he made an estimate of her worth.

“That was her mother?” asked Truda.  “The dead woman in the street, I mean?”

“Yes,” answered the man.  “That was her mother.  Her father went the same way six months ago, but in another street.”

Truda’s lips parted, but she said nothing.

“Ah, perhaps your Excellency does not understand?” suggested the man.  The cynical humor in his face had no resemblance to mirth.  “They were Jews, you see—­Jews.”

“Judenhetze?” asked Truda.  She had heard of old of that strange fever that seizes certain peoples and inflames them with a rabid lust for Jewish blood.

“Yes,” answered the Jew.  “That is what they call it.  But a local variety.  Here it is not sudden passion, but a thing suggested to the mob, and guided by police and officers.  It is an expedient of politics.”

He spoke with a restraint that was more than any, emphasis.

“And therefore,” he went on, “the kindness of your Excellency is the greater, since you saved the child not from law-breakers, but from authority itself.”

“I have done nothing,” said Truda.  “The child is a dear little thing.  I—­I wish she were mine.”

“She, too, is a Jew,” said the other.

“I know,” answered Truda.  The steadiness of his gaze was an embarrassment by now.  She flushed a little under it.

“I am wondering,” she said, “if nothing can be done.  I think—­I believe—­that the world does not know of this persecution.  Perhaps I could say a word—­in some high quarter——­”

“Why should you concern yourself?” asked the Jew evenly.  “Why should you take this trouble?”

“Why?” Truda looked up at him, doubtful of his meaning.

He nodded.  “Why?” he repeated.  “It cannot be good for Truda Schottelius to stand on the side of Jews?”

“What do you mean?” demanded Truda.

He continued to look at her steadily, but made no answer.  She rose from her chair and took one step towards him; then paused.  A tense moment of silence passed, and Truda Schottelius sighed.