young, having reached some year certainly in advance of thirty, and his face was full of intellect. He was slightly made, below the middle height, but was well made in every limb, with small feet and hands, and small ears, and a well-turned neck. He was very dark — dark as a man can be, and yet show no sign of colour in his blood. No white man could be more dark and swarthy than Anton Trendellsohn. His eyes, however, which were quite black, were very bright. His jet-black hair, as it clustered round his ears, had in it something of a curl. Had it been allowed to grow, it would almost have hung in ringlets; but it was worn very short, as though its owner were jealous even of the curl. Anton Trendellsohn was decidedly a handsome man; but his eyes were somewhat too close together in his face, and the bridge of his aquiline nose was not sharply cut, as is mostly the case with such a nose on a Christian face. The olive oval face was without doubt the face of a Jew, and the mouth was greedy, and the teeth were perfect and bright, and the movement of the man's body was the movement of a Jew. But not the less on that account had he behaved with Christian forbearance to his Christian debtor, Josef Balatka, and with Christian chivalry to Balatka's daughter, till that chivalry had turned itself into love.  

"Nina," he said, putting out his hand, and holding hers as he spoke, "I hardly expected you this evening; but I am glad to see you — very glad."  

"I hope I am not troubling you, Anton?"  

"How can you trouble me? The sun does not trouble us when we want light and heat."  

"Can I give you light and heat?"  

"The light and heat I love best, Nina."  

"If I thought that — if I could really think that — I would be happy still, and would mind nothing."  

"And what is it you do mind?"  

"There are things to trouble us, of course. When aunt Sophie says that all of us have our troubles — even she — I suppose that even she speaks the truth."  

"Your aunt Sophie is a fool."  

"I should not mind if she were only a fool. But a fool can sometimes be right."  

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