"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I must have a talk with him."
She could hardly credit what she heard. He couldn't have said it. Surely, either he or she must be taking leave of their senses.
"Don't be anxious," he said. "I am quite aware what I owe to your reputation. But I must find out once for all what opinion he has of your position.... Here is a man in America who has your promise, yet makes no sign.... He doesn't turn up, and he doesn't write. Why doesn't he write? If he hasn't got your address, why should he not write through Herr Dehnicke, whose business is known all over Berlin? No one is even sure if he is still alive. For a long time I tried to explain his silence in various ways; but now I can't help saying to myself, the only explanation there can possibly be is that he is dead, or as good as dead. Are you to continue bound to a dead man? Is your social existence to be dependent, as it were, on a guard of honour who has nothing to guard? This is the point I would like to discuss with the mutual friend. He'll have to answer me, or do you think he'll object?"
Really, he has less knowledge of the world than is permissible, she thought compassionately; and aloud she replied, "I don't quite see, Konni, how you are justified in forcing an interview on a stranger."
"That's my affair," he said, throwing back his head defiantly. "First, I must know if he will let you be free to do as you like. I don't see why he should hold the slave-driver's whip over you."
"And I don't see why you should put yourself in a false position," she cried in newly awakened alarm. Already she heard fisticuffs and pistol-shots resounding in her ears. "I will speak to Herr Dehnicke myself; I will set myself free. I promise you that. But you ... if I let you go to him, what will he think of me? You will only succeed in compromising me."
He drew himself up. His eyes were those of a conqueror. "If a man loves you and wants you for his wife, I fail to see how that can compromise you."
It was dusk and oppressively close when these words were spoken. The little bullfinch flapped its wings languidly in its sand, the goldfish remained motionless behind their wall of hot glass, and the small naked monkey whimpered in his sleep. Heavy masses of bluish-black clouds were reflected in the slimy water of the canal. There was a menace of storm in the air--and this was the thunderbolt.