“It would be very convenient,” replied the Marquis, with still more vivacity, “but the proof that it is not true is that you yourself are filled with remorse at not having saved the soul so weak of that defenseless child.  Ah, I do not mince the truth to myself, and I shall not do so to you.  You remember the morning when you were so gay, and when you gave me the theory of your cosmopolitanism?  It amused you, as a perfect dilettante, so you said, to assist in one of those dramas of race which bring into play the personages from all points of the earth and of history, and you then traced to me a programme very true, my faith, and which events have almost brought about.  Madame Steno has indeed conducted herself toward her two lovers as a Venetian of the time of Aretin; Chapron, with all the blind devotion of a descendant of an oppressed race; his sister with the villainous ferocity of a rebel who at length shakes off the yoke, since you think she wrote those anonymous letters.  Hafner and Ardea have laid bare two detestable souls, the one of an infamous usurer, half German, half Dutch; the other of a degraded nobleman, in whom is revived some ancient ‘condottiere’.  Gorka has been brave and mad, like entire Poland; his wife implacable and loyal, like all of England.  Maitland continues to be positive, insensible, and wilful in the midst of it all, as all America.  And poor Alba ended as did her father.  I do not speak to you of Baron Hafner’s daughter,” and he raised his hat.  Then, in an altered voice: 

“She is a saint, in whom I was deceived.  But she has Jewish blood in her veins, blood which was that of the people of God.  I should have remembered it and the beautiful saying of the Middle Ages:  ’The Jewish women shall be saved because they have wept for our Lord in secret.’....  You outlined for me in advance the scene of the drama in which we have been mixed up....  And do you remember what I said:  ’Is there not among them a soul which you might aid in doing better?’ You laughed in my face at that moment.  You would have treated me, had you been less polite, as a Philistine and a cabotin.  You wished to be only a spectator, the gentleman in the balcony who wipes the glasses of his lorgnette in order to lose none of the comedy.  Well, you could not do so.  That role is not permitted a man.  He must act, and he acts always, even when he thinks he is looking on, even when he washes his hands as Pontius Pilate, that dilettante, too, who uttered the words of your masters and of yourself.  What is truth?  Truth is that there is always and everywhere a duty to fulfil.  Mine was to prevent that criminal encounter.  Yours was not to pay attention to that young girl if you did not love her, and if you loved her, to marry her and to take her from her abominable surroundings.  We have both failed, and at what a price!”

“You are very severe,” said the young man; “but if you were right would not Alba be dead?  Of what use is it for me to know what I should have done when it is too late?”