"You and your comrades appear to be very well acquainted with all that goes on at Herr Berkow's works."
"The whole town is talking of it," declared Conrad, quite unmoved. "As for me, I certainly have been out there pretty often."
At this avowal his father gave a start of surprise.
"You have been out to see him, and that frequently?"
Perhaps the young man had observed the emotion which at his last words had become visible in Eugénie's face. He took her hand in his now and held it fast as he continued in the same careless way:
"Well, yes, sir. You told me not to talk about that business, you know, and it would have looked odd if I had ignored my brother-in-law altogether, especially situated as he now is. You did not forbid my going out there."
"Because I imagined your own sense of propriety would have forbidden it," said Windeg, highly incensed. "I took it as a matter of course that you would avoid that connection, instead of which you appear to have sought it, and that without writing one word on the subject to me. Really, Conrad, this is too bad!"
If he had told the whole truth, Conrad must have confessed that he had feared to receive a direct prohibition, and so had prudently abstained from all mention of his proceedings in his letters. In a general way he stood in proper awe of his father's frown, but to-day Eugénie's presence seemed to counterbalance its effect. He looked in her eyes, and what he saw there must have made the paternal reproaches easy to bear, for he even smiled as he answered quite unconcernedly,
"Well, I can't help it if I have taken such a liking to Arthur. You would have done the same in my place. I assure you he can be perfectly charming if he likes, only he is always so awfully grave. To tell the truth, his gravity suits him very well, though. I said to him yesterday, when I was coming away, 'If I had known from the first what you were, Arthur'"----
"Arthur!" interrupted his father, with his severest intonation.