"Is it a present? she asked. As yet he had never given her anything that she could call a gift, and it was to her almost a matter of pride that she had taken nothing from her Jew lover, and that she would take nothing till it should be her right to take everything. "Hardly a present; but you shall look at it as you will. You remember Rapinsky, do you not?" Now Rapinsky was the jeweller in the Grosser Ring, and Nina, though she well remembered the man and the shop, did not at the moment remember the name. "You will not have forgotten this at any rate," said Trendellsohn, bringing the necklace from out of his pocket. "How did you get it?" said Nina, not putting out her hand to take it, but looking at it as it lay upon the table. "I thought you would be glad to have it back again." "I should be glad if--" "If what? Will it be less welcome because it comes through my hands?" "The man lent me money upon it, and you must have paid the money." "What if I have? I like your pride, Nina; but be not too proud. Of course I have paid the money. I know Rapinsky, who deals with us often. I went to him after you spoke to me, and got it back again. There is your mother's necklace." "I am sorry for this, Anton." "Why sorry?" "We are so poor that I shall be driven to take it elsewhere again. I cannot keep such a thing in the house while father wants. But better he should want than--" "Than what, Nina?" "There would be something like cheating in borrowing money on the same thing twice." "Then put it by, and I will be your lender." "No; I will not borrow from you. You are the only one in the world that I could never repay. I cannot borrow from you. Keep this thing, and if I am ever your wife, then you shall give it me." "If you are ever my wife?" "Is there no room for such an if? I hope there is not, Anton. I wish it were as certain as the sun's rising. But people around us are so cruel! It seems, sometimes, as though the world were against us. And then you, yourself--" "What of me myself, Nina?" "I do not think you trust me altogether; and unless you trust me, I know you will not make me your wife." "That is certain; and yet I do not doubt that you will be my wife." "But do you trust me? Do you believe in your heart of hearts that I know nothing of that paper for which you are searching?" She paused for a reply, but he did not at once make any. "Tell me," she went on saying, with energy, "are you sure that I am true to you in that matter, as in all others? Though I were starving--and it is nearly so with me already--and though I loved you beyond even all heaven, as I do, I do--I would not become your wife if you doubted me in any tittle. Say that you doubt me, and then it shall be all over." Still he did not speak. "Rebecca Loth will be a fitter wife for you than I can be," said Nina. "If you are not my wife, I shall never have a wife," said Trendellsohn.