"You will say, then, that you are sorry to have caused the princess so much trouble. You, yourself, would never have thought of it; but that man--how did you call him?"
"Timm!"
"----had led you on! Now you had found out that such proceedings were not worthy of an honest man, and, that you promised the princess, upon your honor, never to let another word of that whole affair escape your lips."
"My lips!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, like a school-boy who repeats a lesson the teacher tells him to say after him.
"And as for that man, Timm, you will tell the princess not to trouble herself about him; but, if he should come and ask for money, to have him turned out of the house by the servants. As you do not intend to support him in any way, he cannot expect to make much out of the story. Have you got it all well in your head now?"
"I think it will do," said Mr. Schmenckel, meditatively.
"And, above all, you will accept no money from the princess, neither much nor little. Don't forget that; do you hear?"
"All right!" said the director, putting his hat on his head with a great show of resolution. "Adieu, professor!"
"Adieu!" said Berger, shaking hands. "Go and become once more the honest, upright man you have been heretofore."
"And now," said Berger to himself, when the door had closed after Schmenckel; "now the moment has come to pay an old debt." He went to a bureau and took from a drawer a small box of ebony and a medallion. Then he left the room and went down the passage till he came to a door, before which he stopped, listening for a moment. The key was in the key-hole. Berger noiselessly drew it out and knocked.