"Tell me, Bemperly, what is the truth of this report, that your Frau von Berkow and Baron Oldenburg are living on very intimate terms with each other?" asked Sophie, after a short pause.
"Nothing; nothing at all!" said Bemperlein, very earnestly. "I should like to know what people have to do with that. There is an old friendship between them, which dates back to the years when they were children. That is all. Then they are neighbors, and must needs see each other frequently--is not that perfectly natural? Why could not they marry each other if they liked it? Instead of that the baron goes to Paris, and leaves her, amid snow and ice, quite alone at Berkow. Does not that show as clear as daylight that there is no question of love between them?--or it must be a strange kind of love."
At that moment Sophie started with joy. She had caught a glimpse of a tall, elegant man with a black beard, who was hastily passing the window.
"There is Franz!" cried the young wife, her large blue eyes brightening up and her cheeks blushing a deep red. "Hide yourself, Bemperly!"
"But where?" said Mr. Bemperlein, looking around in the room.
"There, behind the curtain! Hold it together in the middle, so that it cannot open--thus!"
The bell was rung. Immediately afterwards the door of the room opened, and Franz entered with rapid steps.
"Has not Bemperlein come?"
"Do you see him anywhere?"
Franz, it is true, did not see Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, but upon a chair a gentleman's hat; and, besides, the folds of the heavy curtain arranged in a manner which very clearly betrayed the efforts of a hand to hold them together.