The President's bediamonded fingers recommenced their ill-tempered tattoo; he was fuming inwardly with a sense of baffled wrath, of righteous indignation made unrighteous. "Is it true, sir," he burst forth at last in the most terrible accents he could command in the circumstances, "that you meditate giving your daughter in marriage to a Polish Jew?" "No," replied Manasseh curtly. "No?" articulated the President, while a murmur of astonishment went round the table at this unexpected collapse of the whole case. "Why, your daughter admitted it to my wife," said the Councillor on Manasseh's right. Manasseh turned to him, expostulant, tilting his chair and body towards him. "My daughter is going to marry a Polish Jew," he explained with argumentative forefinger, "but I do not meditate giving her to him." "Oh, then, you will refuse your consent," said the Councillor, hitching his chair back so as to escape the beggar's progressive propinquity. "By no means," quoth Manasseh in surprised accents, as he drew his chair nearer again, "I have already consented. I do not _meditate_ consenting. That word argues an inconclusive attitude." "None of your quibbles, sirrah," cried the President, while a scarlet flush mantled on his dark countenance. "Do you not know that the union you contemplate is disgraceful and degrading to you, to your daughter, and to the community which has done so much for you? What! A Sephardi marry a Tedesco! Shameful." "And do you think I do not feel the shame as deeply as you?" enquired Manasseh, with infinite pathos. "Do you think, gentlemen, that I have not suffered from this passion of a Tedesco for my daughter? I came here expecting your sympathy, and do you offer me reproach? Perhaps you think, sir"--here he turned again to his right-hand neighbour, who, in his anxiety to evade his pertinacious proximity, had half-wheeled his chair round, offering only his back to the argumentative forefinger--"perhaps you think, because I have consented, that I cannot condole with you, that I am not at one with you in lamenting this blot on our common 'scutcheon; perhaps you think"--here he adroitly twisted his chair into argumentative position on the other side of the Councillor, rounding him like a cape--"that, because you have no sympathy with my tribulation, I have no sympathy with yours. But, if I have consented, it is only because it was the best I could do for my daughter. In my heart of hearts I have repudiated her, so that she may practically be considered an orphan, and, as such, a fit person to receive the marriage dowry bequeathed by Rodriguez Real, peace be upon him." "This is no laughing matter, sir," thundered the President, stung into forgetfulness of his dignity by thinking too much of it. "No, indeed," said Manasseh sympathetically, wheeling to the right so as to confront the President, who went on stormily, "Are you aware, sir, of the penalties you risk by persisting in your course?"