She had seen an advertisement about six weeks ago in the Lokal Anzeiger, in which an erudite young scholar offered his services as coach to ladies and gentlemen with a thirst for self-improvement. She had answered it, and the scholar had come and arranged a course of lessons forthwith. It had led to a friendship between master and pupil--of a purely platonic nature, of course. She had made up her mind, she said, not to tell him, being afraid of exciting his jealousy, till she was able to convince him of the absolute disinterestedness of her intellectual endeavours by proving their success.
He knit his brow, and a sardonic smile, which she could not account for, played about his lips.
"So you have got a young scholar for a friend again?" he asked, leaning his head on one side and winking at her.
"Yes, and I am proud of it."
"I suppose he's going to be Regius professor?"
"He hasn't made up his mind what he's going to be."
"He is extremely brilliant, intellectual, and superior, I presume?"
She cast up her eyes ecstatically. "I should think so. I have never met anyone like him." She stopped short, horrified at her own indiscretion.
"Ha! ha! I see," he said, as if some long-cherished suspicion had been confirmed. "I see," and he got very red, and gnawed his moustache. "Didn't I say what it would be?"
"You are jealous!" she cried. She felt herself writhing under a shameful injustice.