The Jewish doctor examined with curious eyes, though furtively, the room in which his client of the day before received him, and Godefroid detected the suspicious thought which darted from his eyes like the sharp point of a dagger.  This rapid conception of distrust gave Godefroid a cold chill, for he thought within himself that such a man would be pitiless in all relations; it is so natural to suppose that genius is connected with goodness that a strong sensation of disgust took possession of him.

“Monsieur,” he said, “I see that the simplicity of my room makes you uneasy; therefore you need not be surprised at my method of proceeding.  Here are your two hundred francs, and here, too, are three notes of a thousand francs each,” he added, drawing from his pocket-book the money Madame de la Chanterie had given him to release Monsieur Bernard’s book; but in case you still feel doubtful of my solvency I offer you as reference Messrs. Mongenod, bankers, rue de la Victoire.”

“I know them,” said Halpersohn, putting the ten gold pieces into his pocket.

“He’ll inquire of them,” thought Godefroid.

“Where is the patient?” asked the doctor, rising like a man who knows the value of time.

“This way, monsieur,” said Godefroid, preceding him to show the way.

The Jew examined with a shrewd and suspicious eye the places he passed through, giving them the keen, rapid glance of a spy; he saw all the horrors of poverty through the door of the room in which the grandfather and the grandson lived; for, unfortunately, Monsieur Bernard had gone in to change his clothes before entering his daughter’s room, and in his haste to open the outer door to the doctor, he had forgotten to close that of his lair.

He bowed in a stately manner to Halpersohn, and opened the door of his daughter’s room cautiously.

“Vanda, my child, here is the doctor,” he said.

Then he stood aside to allow Halpersohn, who kept on his bear-skin pelisse, to pass him.  The Jew was evidently surprised at the luxury of the room, which in this quarter, and more especially in this house, was an anomaly; but his surprise only lasted for an instant, for he had seen among German and Russian Jews many instances of the same contrast between apparent misery and hoarded wealth.  As he walked from the door to the bed he kept his eye on the patient, and the moment he reached her he said in Polish:—­

“You are a Pole?”

“No, I am not; my mother was.”

“Whom did your grandfather, Colonel Tarlowski, marry?”

“A Pole.”

“From what province?”

“A Soboleska, of Pinsk.”

“Very good; monsieur is your father?”

“Yes.”

“Monsieur,” he said, turning to the old man; “your wife—­”

“Is dead;” said Monsieur Bernard.

“Was she very fair?” said Halpersohn, showing a slight impatience at being interrupted.