"Why do you ask me? What business is it of yours?"
"They say that Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew, gives you all that you want," said Ziska.
"Then they say lies," said Nina, her eyes flashing fire upon her Christian lover through the gloom of the evening. "Who says so? You say so. No one else would be mean enough to be so false."
"All Prague says so."
"All Prague! I know what that means. And did all Prague go to the Jews' quarter last Saturday, to tell Anton Trendellsohn that the paper which he wants, and which is his own, was in father's keeping? Was it all Prague told that falsehood also?" There was a scorn in her face as she spoke which distressed Ziska greatly, but which he did not know how to meet or how to answer. He wanted to be brave before her; and he wanted also to show his affection for her, if only he knew how to do so, without making himself humble in her presence.
"Shall I tell you, Nina, why I went to the Jews' quarter on Saturday?"
"No; tell me nothing. I wish to hear nothing from you. I know enough without your telling me."
"I wish to save you if it be possible, because — because I love you."
"And I — I never wish to see you again, because I hate you. I hate you, because you have been cruel. But let me tell you this; poor as we are, I have never taken a farthing of Anton's money. When I am his wife, as I hope to be — as I hope to be — I will take what he gives me as though it came from heaven. From you! — I would sooner die in the street than take a crust of bread from you." Then she darted from him, and succeeded in escaping without hearing the words with which he replied to her angry taunts. She was woman enough to understand that her keenest weapon for wounding him would be an expression of unbounded love and confidence as to the man who was his rival; and therefore, though she was compelled to deny that she had lived on the charity of her lover, she had coupled her denial with an assurance of her faith and affection, which was, no doubt, bitter enough in Ziska's ears. "I do believe that she is witched," he said, as he turned away towards his own house. And then he reflected wisely on the backward tendency of the world in general, and regretted much that there was no longer given to priests in Bohemia the power of treating with salutary ecclesiastical severity patients suffering in the way in which his cousin Nina was afflicted.
Nina had hardly got out of the Grosser Ring into the narrow street which leads from thence towards the bridge, when she encountered her other lover. He was walking slowly down the centre of the street when she passed him, or would have passed him, had not she recognized his figure through the gloom. "Anton," she said, coming up to him and touching his arm as lightly as was possible. "I am so glad to meet you here."