"The same danger threatens me, I fear, and he is capable of choosing the very day when I have the best society of Warsaw in my salon. This eccentric has turned Mathilde's head. She will suffer no one to ridicule him, and looks on him as a saint."
"They have indulged in a Platonic romance since their childhood; but I will give you the means of breaking the charm which enchains my daughter's spirit. Behold! he whom she takes for a saint pays his tribute to frail humanity."
"How? I have never heard any scandal about Jacob."
"He has concealed it well; but I have a good detective who has told me that this sage, learned in the books of Solomon, follows the footsteps of that voluptuous monarch. Only they are not beautiful Midianites with whom he shares his wealth. He has succumbed to a pure-blooded Jewess."
"Tell me about it, I beg of you."
"Well, you know that I like to look about me a little everywhere. Sometimes I profit by it, and it always amuses me. Sometimes in one direction, sometimes another, I have bloodhounds that I chat with. Of late, that old man with a red nose, whom they call Trompette, has spied about for me. One day I was occupied; he insisted on seeing me, and came in with a mysterious air as if he had a state secret. He told me that Monsieur Jacob,--you will never guess,--the pious Jacob, had a mistress. She is a Jewess, whose father is very rich. The romance has lasted a long time, for the result is a child, on account of which she has been turned from her father's house."
"Well, well!" cried Henri. "Why, it is impossible!"
"At first he hid her with the greatest mystery in a little old house in the rue des Jardins. Now he has established her, still secretly, in a much more comfortable place in Saint George's street. He often goes there in the evening. I know it to be so, and I am told that the girl is pretty, graceful, and modest."
"How does he reconcile this proceeding with his principles?" asked Henri. "Really, I am surprised."
Samuel laughed heartily, and added:--