"For instance?"
"I will be frank with you. From sheer ennui I had begun at Grenwitz already to pay her some attentions, and afterwards, during my sickness, I saw still more of the little thing, till it ended in my thinking the girl really very charming and prodigiously attractive. But she pretended to be so very reserved that I suspected at once she had a serious attachment. Now I cannot think of any one else who could have been in my way but yourself."
"Very complimentary," said Albert. "I am, indeed, as good as engaged to the young lady."
"But, Timm, are you going to run into your ruin with your eyes open? You and a wife! and worse than that, a poor wife!--what has become of your former principles? Upon my word, I should not have thought you could be so mad."
"Nor I, myself," replied Albert, emptying his glass and filling it again.
"Are you in love with the girl?"
"There you ask me more than I know myself."
"Look here, Timm, I will make you an offer. We are, it seems, in the way of speculating. Let me have the girl, and I assume the three hundred dollars which you have borrowed from the poor little thing."
"Who says so?" said Albert, furiously.
"Your fury just now, for one; besides that, however, little Louisa, Helen's maid, and my own man's lady love, who happened to see it, when Marguerite gave you the money in the park at Grenwitz."