"It would be of no use. I could not search as you can do. Tell me, Nina; has your father no place locked up which is not open to you?"
"Yes; he has his old desk; you know it, where it stands in the parlour."
"You never open that?"
"No, never; but there is nothing there — nothing of that nature."
"How can you tell? Or he can keep it about his person?"
"He keeps it nowhere. He has not got it. Dear Anton, put it out of your head. You do not know my cousin Ziska. That he has it in his own hands I am now sure."
"And I, Nina, am sure that it is here in the Kleinseite — or at least am sure that he thinks it to be so. The question now is this: Will you obey me in what directions I may give you concerning it?" Nina could not bring herself to give an unqualified reply to this demand on the spur of the moment. Perhaps it occurred to her that the time for such implicit obedience on her part had hardly yet come — that as yet at least she must not be less true to her father than to her lover. She hesitated, therefore, in answering him. "Do you not understand me, Nina?" he said roughly. "I asked you whether you will do as I would have you do, and you make no reply. We two, Nina, must be one in all things, or else we must be apart — in all things."
"I do not know what it is you wish of me," she said, trembling.
"I wish you to obey me."
"But suppose — "