VERA [_Looking from one to the other_] Not seen--? Then what--whom are you talking about? BARONESS About zat handsome, quite adoràhble Mr. Davenport. VERA Davenport! BARONESS Who combines ze manners of Europe viz ze millions of America! VERA [_Breaks into girlish laughter_] Ha! Ha! Ha! So Mr. Davenport has been talking to you! But you all seem to forget one small point--bigamy is not permitted even to millionaires. BARONESS Ah, not boz at vonce, but---- VERA And do you think I would take another woman's leavings? No, not even if she were dead. BARONESS You are insulting! VERA I beg your pardon--I wasn't even thinking of you. Father, to put an end at once to this absurd conversation, let me inform you I am already engaged. BARON [_Trembling, hoarse_] By name, David. VERA Yes--David Quixano. BARON A Jew! VERA How did you know? Yes, he is a Jew, a noble Jew. BARON A Jew noble! [_He laughs bitterly._] VERA Yes--even as you esteem nobility--by pedigree. In Spain his ancestors were hidalgos, favourites at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella; but in the great expulsion of 1492 they preferred exile in Poland to baptism. BARON And you, a Revendal, would mate with an unbaptized dog? VERA Dog! You call my husband a dog! BARON Husband! God in heaven--are you married already? VERA No! But not being unemployed millionaires like Mr. Davenport, we hold even our troth eternal. [_Calmer_] Our poverty, not your prejudice, stands in the way of our marriage. But David is a musician of genius, and some day---- BARONESS A fiddler in a beer-hall! She prefers a fiddler to a millionaire of ze first families of America! VERA [_Contemptuously_] First families! I told you David's family came to Poland in 1492--some months before America was discovered. BARON Christ save us! You have become a Jewess! VERA No more than David has become a Christian. We were already at one--all honest people are. Surely, father, all religions must serve the same God--since there is only one God to serve. BARONESS But ze girl is an ateist! BARON Silence, Katusha! Leave me to deal with my daughter. [_Changing tone to pathos, taking her face between his hands_] Oh, Vera, _Verotschka_, my dearest darling, I had sooner you had remained buried in Siberia than that---- [_He breaks down._] VERA [_Touched, sitting beside him_] For you, father, I _was_ as though buried in Siberia. Why did you come here to stab yourself afresh? BARON I wish to God I had come here earlier. I wish I had not been so nervous of Russian spies. Ah, _Verotschka_, if you only knew how I have pored over the newspaper pictures of you, and the reports of your life in this Settlement! VERA You asked me not to send letters. BARON I know, I know--and yet sometimes I felt as if I could risk Siberia myself to read your dear, dainty handwriting again. VERA [_Still more softened_] Father, if you love me so much, surely you will love David a little too--for my sake.