"By means of the Italian, yes. I have entered the stronghold."
"But he closed the door in your face!"
"No, no; I can open it at any time."
"Excellent Kisschwasser, this of yours, madame!" exclaimed Von Sendlingen, in his satisfaction speaking the word with a little too accurate a pronunciation to suit a native of the south of France.
"Mark that man!" whispered Rebecca to Clemenceau, whom she had rejoined as he stood by her father. "Distrust him! his laugh is forced and false! I am sure that he wishes you evil!"
"Then stay here and shield the house!"
"No; I must go this evening. Ah, you men of brains laugh at us women for entertaining presentiments. But we do have them and we must utter them. Be on your guard!"
"And must you go?" went on Clemenceau to Daniels, as if he expected to find him less resolute than his daughter.
"More than ever!" but, seeing how he had saddened him, he took his hand with much emotion and added: "Rebecca will explain. I go away happy to think that the honest men outnumber the other sort and that when we all take hold of hands, we shall see that the scoundrels excluded from our ring will be scarcely worth disabling from farther injury."
Césarine, perceiving that her confederate was edging gradually toward the rifle which Antonino had been shooting with and which had been removed from the drawing-room, where the guest for a day had too many opportunities to be alone with it. To cover his inspection, she suggested that Rebecca should afford the company a final pleasure, a kind of swan's song, and went and opened the cottage-piano for her. The Jewess did not refuse the invitation and began Gounod's "Medje" in a voice which Von Sendlingen had room to admit had improved in tone and volumn, and would make her as worthy of the grand opera house as it had, five years before, of the Harmonista and its class. Daniels quietly left the room, loth to disturb Clemenceau, whom that voice enthralled and who became more and more deeply submerged in the thoughts it engendered. He suffered pain from the need to liberate his sorrows, confide his spirit and communicate his dreams. And was not this singer the very one created to comfort him and lull him to rest? Must he remain heroic and ridiculous in the indissoluble bond, and endure silently. On Antonino he rested his mind and on Rebecca, the daughter of the eternally persecuted, he longed to rest his soul.