"Go to your uncle, Ruth, and tell him that I want him — on business."
"I will, and he'll come to you. He won't let me come down again, so kiss me, Nina; good-bye."
Nina kissed the child again, and then was left alone in the room. It was a comfortable chamber, having in it sofas and arm-chairs — much more comfortable, Nina used to think, than her aunt's grand drawing-room in the Windberg-gasse, which was covered all over with a carpet, after the fashion of drawing-rooms in Paris; but the Jew's sitting-room was dark, with walls painted a gloomy green colour, and there was but one small lamp of oil upon the table. But yet Nina loved the room, and as she sat there waiting for her lover, she wished that it had been her lot to have been born a Jewess. Only, had that been so, her hair might perhaps have been black, and her eyes dark, and Anton would not have liked her. She put her hand up for a moment to her rich brown tresses, and felt them as she took joy in thinking that Anton Trendellsohn loved to look upon fair beauty.
After a short while Anton Trendellsohn came down. To those who know the outward types of his race there could be no doubt that Anton Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was certainly a handsome man, not now very 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."