"Here is a collection of old Italian folksongs. I should like you to show me the best. I myself don't know enough about it."
"I can't understand," said George gently, "how you can stand any one like that man Nürnberger near you. He spreads around him an absolute atmosphere of distrust and malice."
"As I've often told you, George, you're no judge of character. After all, what do you know about him? He's different from what you think he is; just ask your friend Heinrich Bermann."
"Oh, I know well enough that he raves about him, too," replied George.
"You're speaking about Nürnberger?" asked Frau Ehrenberg, who had just joined them.
"George can't stand him," said Else in her casual way.
"Well, you're doing him a great injustice, if that's the case. Have you ever read anything of his?"
George shook his head.
"Not even his novel which made so great a sensation fifteen or sixteen years ago? That is really a shame. We've just lent it to Hofrat Wilt. I tell you he was quite flabbergasted at the way in which the whole of present-day Austria is anticipated in that book, written all that time ago."
"Really, is that so?" said George, without conviction.