"You can serve him without dying. If he takes you for his wife, all his people will turn against him. His own father will become his enemy."
"How can that be? His father knows of it, and yet he is not my enemy."
"It is as I tell you. His father will disinherit him. Every Jew in Prague will turn his back upon him. He knows it now. Anton knows it himself, but he cannot be the first to say the word that shall put an end to your engagement."
"Jews have married Christians in Prague before now," said Nina, pleading her own cause with all the strength she had.
"But not such a one as Anton Trendellsohn. An unconsidered man may do that which is not permitted to those who are more in note."
"There is no law against it now."
"That is true. There is no law. But there are habits stronger than law. In your own case, do you not know that all the friends you have in the world will turn their backs upon you? And so it would be with him. You two would be alone — neither as Jews nor as Christians — with none to aid you, with no friend to love you."
"For myself I care nothing," said Nina. "They may say, if they like, that I am no Christian."
"But how will it be with him? Can you ever be happy if you have been the cause of ruin to your husband?"
Nina was again silent for a while, sitting with her face turned altogether away from the Jewess. Then she rose suddenly from her chair, and, facing round almost fiercely upon the other girl, asked a question, which came from the fulness of her heart, "And you — you yourself, what is it that you intend to do? Do you wish to marry him?"