And she, still keeping her frightened, searching eyes upon him, felt along her hip with her clenched fist for her pocket.  Her fist struggled convulsively for the pocket, like a fish in the net, and could not find the opening.  In another moment the IOUs would have vanished in the recesses of her feminine garments, but at that point the lieutenant uttered a faint cry, and, moved more by instinct than reflection, seized the Jewess by her arm above the clenched fist.  Showing her teeth more than ever, she struggled with all her might and pulled her hand away.  Then Sokolsky put his right arm firmly round her waist, and the other round her chest and a struggle followed.  Afraid of outraging her sex or hurting her, he tried only to prevent her moving, and to get hold of the fist with the IOUs; but she wriggled like an eel in his arms with her supple, flexible body, struck him in the chest with her elbows, and scratched him, so that he could not help touching her all over, and was forced to hurt her and disregard her modesty.

“How unusual this is!  How strange!” he thought, utterly amazed, hardly able to believe his senses, and feeling rather sick from the scent of jasmine.

In silence, breathing heavily, stumbling against the furniture, they moved about the room.  Susanna was carried away by the struggle.  She flushed, closed her eyes, and forgetting herself, once even pressed her face against the face of the lieutenant, so that there was a sweetish taste left on his lips.  At last he caught hold of her clenched hand. . . .  Forcing it open, and not finding the papers in it, he let go the Jewess.  With flushed faces and dishevelled hair, they looked at one another, breathing hard.  The spiteful, catlike expression on the Jewess’s face was gradually replaced by a good-natured smile.  She burst out laughing, and turning on one foot, went towards the room where lunch was ready.  The lieutenant moved slowly after her.  She sat down to the table, and, still flushed and breathing hard, tossed off half a glass of port.

“Listen”—­the lieutenant broke the silence—­“I hope you are joking?”

“Not a bit of it,” she answered, thrusting a piece of bread into her mouth.

“H’m! . . .  How do you wish me to take all this?”

“As you choose.  Sit down and have lunch!”

“But . . . it’s dishonest!”

“Perhaps.  But don’t trouble to give me a sermon; I have my own way of looking at things.”

“Won’t you give them back?”

“Of course not!  If you were a poor unfortunate man, with nothing to eat, then it would be a different matter.  But—­he wants to get married!”

“It’s not my money, you know; it’s my cousin’s!”

“And what does your cousin want with money?  To get fashionable clothes for his wife?  But I really don’t care whether your belle-soeur has dresses or not.”

The lieutenant had ceased to remember that he was in a strange house with an unknown lady, and did not trouble himself with decorum.  He strode up and down the room, scowled and nervously fingered his waistcoat.  The fact that the Jewess had lowered herself in his eyes by her dishonest action, made him feel bolder and more free-and-easy.