“I am afraid I cannot.”
“You mean that it involves a woman and that I will put two and two together and discover who she is?”
“Something like that.”
“You forget that I am not of your world. I enter it on rare occasions, as a sort of lay figure. None of its gossip comes to me. I have a few acquaintances, but they know better than to regale me with the scandal of the town. To me Munich is a mere audience.”
“Princess Nachmeister seems to have talked to you a good deal about me.”
“But only because of her genuine interest. She has never gossiped about you.”
“I don’t think there has been any gossip—no, I suppose you never could guess. I have been foolish and I am afraid I shall have to pay heavily.”
“Don’t believe all that unscrupulous girls—”
“Oh! oh! It is not as bad as that. Perhaps, though, it is worse, if only because more intangible. It is a sort of pressure—an accumulation—a woman fancies herself in love with me—of course she isn’t, but—well—she thinks that she is willing to sacrifice everything. She has great strength of feeling, and I am haunted by the fear that she will carry me away on that current whether I will or not. I do not love her in the least, but there are obligations—”
“Were you very much in love with her? You do not look as if you had passed through the throes of the grande passion.”