hand which, by the tone which it produces, seems to insinuate that no
one need hurry to answer such an appeal, and that the answer, when
made, may be made by the lowest personage in the house. In this
instance, however, Lotta Luxa did answer the bell, and not the stout
Bohemian girl who acted in the household of Madame Zamenoy as assistant
and fag to Lotta. And Lotta found Nina at the door, enveloped in her
cloak. "Lotta," she said, "will you kindly give this to my cousin
Ziska?" Then, not waiting for a word, she started away so quickly that
Lotta had not a chance of speaking to her, no power of uttering an
audible word of abuse. When Ziska opened the parcel thus brought to
him, he found it to contain all the notes which he had given to Josef
Balatka.




CHAPTER IV


When Nina returned to her father after Ziska's departure, a very few
words made everything clear between them. "I would not have him if
there was not another man in the world," Nina had said. "He thinks that
it is only Anton Trendellsohn that prevents it, but he knows nothing
about what a girl feels. He thinks that because we are poor I am to be
bought, this way or that way, by a little money. Is that a man, father,
that any girl can love?" Then the father had confessed his receipt of
the bank-notes from Ziska, and we already know to what result that
confession had led.

Till she had delivered her packet into the hands of Lotta Luxa, she