as anxious to learn in what way her talk resembled Alvan's. He
being that furious creature, she thought of herself at her wildest, which
was in her estimation her best; and consequently, she being by no means a
furious creature, though very original, she could not meditate on him
without softening the outlines given him by report; all because of the
likeness between them; and, therefore, as she had knowingly been taken
for furious by very foolish people, she settled it that Alvan was also a
victim of the prejudices he scorned. It had pleased her at times to scorn
our prejudices and feel the tremendous weight she brought on herself by
the indulgence. She drew on her recollections of the Satanic in her bosom
when so situated, and never having admired herself more ardently than
when wearing that aspect, she would have admired the man who had won the
frightful title in public, except for one thing--he was a Jew.

The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew. Her parents had the
same abhorrence of Jewry. One of the favourite similes of the family for
whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew: and it
was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in the veins
of the latest generation and might have been traced on the maternal side.

Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards is
the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent
impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance
repulsive. She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan. Luckily for the
gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet
him again in Italy.

She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she
summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish,
still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice of
the art she could at any time blow up a company--scatter mature and
seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our
stout sex a shaking.

Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling
into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient
lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the
brain of her race is located. There it occurred that a dashing officer of
social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for a
comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making: