The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew.  Her parents had the same abhorrence of Jewry.  One of the favourite similes of the family for whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew:  and it was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in the veins of the latest generation and might have been traced on the maternal side.

Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards is the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance repulsive.  She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan.  Luckily for the gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet him again in Italy.

She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish, still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice of the art she could at any time blow up a company—­scatter mature and seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our stout sex a shaking.

Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the brain of her race is located.  There it occurred that a dashing officer of social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for a comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making:  ’I see you know Alvan.’

Alvan once more.

‘Indeed I do not,’ she said, for she was addressing an officer high above Alvan in social rank; and she shrugged, implying that she was almost past contradiction of the charge.

‘Surely you must,’ said he; ’where is the lady who could talk and think as you do without knowing Alvan and sharing his views!’

Clotilde was both startled and nettled.

’But I do not know him at all; I have never met him, never seen him.  I am unlikely to meet the kind of person,’ she protested; and she was amazed yet secretly rejoiced on hearing him, a noble of her own circle, and a dashing officer, rejoin:  ’Come, come, let us be honest.  That is all very well for the little midges floating round us to say of Alvan, but we two can clasp hands and avow proudly that we both know and love the man.’

’Were it true, I would own it at once, but I repeat, that he is a total stranger to me,’ she said, seeing the Jew under quite a different illumination.

‘Actually?’

‘In honour.’

‘You have never met, never seen him, never read any of his writings?’

‘Never.  I have heard his name, that is all.’