"Certainly," replied Berthold. "Therese is between two dangers, she will either talk her head off one fine day...." "Or?" inquired George, who had grown inquisitive. "Or she'll marry a Baron," finished Berthold curtly. "I don't quite understand," said George deprecatingly. "I only said 'Baron' for a joke, of course. Substitute Prince for Baron and I make my meaning clearer." "I see ... I can now get some idea of what you mean, Doctor.... But how did Parliament come to bother about her?" "Well, it's like this, last year--at the time of the great coal-strike--Therese Golowski made a speech in some Bohemian hole, which contained an expression which was alleged to be offensive to a member of the Imperial family. She was prosecuted and acquitted. One might perhaps draw the conclusion from this that there was no particular substance in the prosecution. Anyway the State Prosecutor gave notice of appeal, there was an order for a new trial, and Therese was sentenced to two months' imprisonment, which she is now serving, and as if that wasn't enough the Judge who had discharged her in the Court of first instance was transferred ... to somewhere on the Russian frontier, from where no one ever comes back. Well, we put a question over this business, which in my view was extremely tame. The Minister answered somewhat disingenuously amid the cheers of the so-called Constitutional parties. I ventured to reply in possibly somewhat more drastic terms than members are accustomed to use, and as the benches on the other side had no facts with which to answer me they tried to overwhelm me by shouts and abuse. And of course you can imagine what the strongest argument was, which a certain type of Conservatives used against my points." "Well?" queried George. "Hold your jaw, Jew," answered Berthold with tightly compressed lips. "Oh," said George with embarrassment, and shook his head. "Be quiet, Jew! Hold your jaw! Jew! Jew! Shut up!" continued Berthold, who seemed somewhat to revel in the recollection. Anna looked straight in front of her. George thought that this was quite enough. There was a short, painful silence. "So that was why?" inquired Anna slowly. "What do you mean?" asked Berthold. "That's why you're resigning your seat." Berthold shook his head and smiled. "No, not because of that." "You are, of course, above such coarse insults, Doctor," said Herr Rosner. "I won't go quite so far as that," answered Berthold, "but one always has to be prepared for things like that all the same. I'm resigning my seat for a different reason." "May one ask what it is?" queried George.