CHAPTER III.

"THE JINGLE-JANGLE."


The person to whom the shapely hand and musical voice belonged,
conducted the student along the narrow passage to a turning where she
halted, under a lamp with a reflector which threw them in that position
into the shade. The passage was divided by the first lobby, and on the
lamp was painted, back to back: "Men," "Ladies;" besides, a babble of
feminine voices on the latter side betrayed, as the intruder suspected
from the previous placard, that he had entered a place of entertainment
by the stage-door, a Tingel-Tangel, or Jingle-Jangle, as we should say.

It was the Jewess who was the Ariadne to this maze. Seen in the light,
at close range, with the enchanting smile which a woman always finds for
the man who has won her gratitude by supplementing her deficiency in
strength and courage with his own, she was worthier love than ever. At
this view, too, he was sure that, unlike too many of the _divas_ of
these _spielungs_, or dens, she was not one of the stray creatures who
sell pleasure to some and give it to others, and for themselves keep
only shame--fatal ignominy, wealth at best very unsubstantial, and if,
at last, winners, they laugh--one would rather see them weeping.

"What's your name?" she inquired, quickly. "I am Rebecca Daniels, whom
they call on the Bills 'La Belle Stamboulane'--though I have never been
farther east than Prague," she added with a contemptuous smile. "That
was my father, whose maltreatment you so promptly but I fear so severely
chastised. But your name?" impatiently.