When the child had gone, the father grumbled, over another glass of wine, at having to train her to a double life. "But it sharpens the wits," said he. "Ianthe should grow up subtle as the secret cupboard within a cupboard which she is now opening. But a woman scarcely needs the training." He was yet laughing over his jape when Ianthe returned, and produced from under a napkin some large, thick biscuits, peculiarly reticulated. Gabriel looked at them curiously. "Knowest thou not Passover cakes?" asked Dom Diego. Gabriel shook his head. "Thou hast never eaten unleavened bread?" "Unleavened bread! Ah, I was reading thereof in the Pentateuch but yesterday. Stay, is it not one of the Inquisition's tests? But I figured it not thus." "'Tis the immemorial pattern, smuggled in from Amsterdam," said the wine-flushed physician, throwing caution to the winds. "Taste! 'Tis more palatable than the Host." "Is Amsterdam, then, a Jewish town?" "Nay, but 'tis the Jerusalem of the West. Little Holland, since she shook off Papistry, hath no persecuting polity like the other nations. And natural enough, for 'tis more a ship than a country. Half my old friends have drifted thither--'tis a sad drain for our old Portuguese community." Gabriel's bosom throbbed. "Then why not join them?" The old physician shook his head. "Nay, I love my Portugal. 'Tis here that I was born, and here will I die. I love her--her mountains, her rivers, her valleys, her medicinal springs--always love Portugal, Ianthe--" "Yes, father," said the little girl gravely. "And, oh, her poets--her Rubeiro, her Falcão, her Camoëns--my own grandfather was thought worthy of a place in the 'Cancioneiro Geral'; and I too have made a Portuguese poem on the first aphorism of Hippocrates, though 'tis yet in manuscript." "But if thou darest not profess thy faith," said Gabriel, "'tis more than all the rest. To live a daily lie--intolerable!" "Hoity-toity! Thou art young and headstrong. The Catholic religion! 'Tis no more than fine manners; as we say in Hebrew, _derech eretz_, the way of the country. Why do I wear breeches and a cocked hat--when I am abroad, _videlicet_? Why does little Ianthe trip it in a petticoat?" "Because I am a girl," said Ianthe. Dom Diego laughed. "There's the question rhetorical, my little one, and the question interrogative. However, we'll not puzzle thee with Quintilian. Run away to thy lute. And so it is, Senhor da Costa. I love my Judaism more than my Portugal; but while I can keep both my mistresses at the cost of a little finesse--" "But the danger of being burnt alive!" "'Tis like hell to the Christian sinner--dim and distant." "Thou hast been singed, methinks." "Like a blasted tree. The lightning will not strike twice. Help thyself to more wine. Besides, my stomach likes not the Biscay Bay. God made us for land animals."