"There is something in what you say," he assented, half-heartedly
As we rose to go he said, timidly: "There is only one more question
I want to ask of you, Levinsky. You won't be angry, will you?"
"What is it?" I demanded, with a good-natured laugh. "What is
bothering your head?"
"I mean if you meet her now, sometimes?"
"Now, look here, Max. You are simply crazy," I said, earnestly. "I swear to you by my mother that I have not seen Dora since I moved out of your house, and that all your suspicions are nonsense" (to keep the memory of my mother from desecration I declared mutely that my oath referred to the truthful part of my declaration only— that is, exclusively to the fact that I no longer met Dora)
"I believe you, I believe you, Levinsky," he rejoined. We parted more than cordially, Max promising to call on me again and to spend an evening with me.
I was left in a singular state of mind. I was eaten up with compunction, and yet the pain of my love reasserted itself with the tantalizing force of two months before.
Max never called on me again.
CHAPTER III
AS a salesman Bender proved a dismal failure, but I retained him in my employ as a bookkeeper and a sort of general supervisor. I could offer him only ten dollars a week, with a promise to raise his salary as soon as I could afford it, and he accepted the job "temporarily." As general supervisor under my orders he developed considerable efficiency, although he lacked initiative and his naïveté was a frequent cause of annoyance to me. I found him spotlessly honest and devoted
I quickly raised his salary to fifteen dollars a week