“Queer!” said Karl, reflectively. “I think there is something odd behind it all.”
“Now listen, Karl. Do you want to have a row with Eugen? Are you anxious for him never to speak to you again?”
“Herrgott, no!”
“Then take my advice, and just keep your mouth shut. Don’t listen to tales, and don’t repeat them.”
“But, my dear fellow, when there is a mystery about a man—”
“Mystery! Nonsense! What mystery is there in a man’s choosing to have private affairs? We didn’t behave in this idiotic manner when you were going on like a lunatic about Fräulein Clara. We simply assumed that as you didn’t speak you had affairs which you chose to keep to yourself. Just apply the rule, or it may be worse for you.”
“For all that, there is something queer,” he said, as we turned into the restauration for dinner.
Yet again, some days later, just before the last concert came off, Karl, talking to me, said, in a tone and with a look as if the idea troubled and haunted him:
“I say, Friedel, do you think Courvoisier’s being here is all square?”