“All square?” I repeated, scornfully.
He nodded.
“Yes. Of course all has been right since he came here; but don’t you think there may be something shady in the background?”
“What do you mean by ‘shady’?” I asked, more annoyed than I cared to confess at his repeated returning to the subject.
“Well, you know, there must be a reason for his being here—”
I burst into a fit of laughter, which was not so mirthful as it might seem.
“I should rather think there must. Isn’t there a reason for every one being somewhere? Why am I here? Why are you here?”
“Yes; but this is quite a different thing. We are all agreed that whatever he may be now, he has not always been one of us, and I like things to be clear about people.”
“It is a most extraordinary thing that you should only have felt the anxiety lately,” said I, witheringly, and then, after a moment’s reflection, I said:
“Look here, Karl; no one could be more unwilling than I to pick a quarrel with you, but quarrel we must if this talking of Eugen behind his back goes on. It is nothing to either of us what his past has been. I want no references. If you want to gossip about him or any one else, go to the old women who are the natural exchangers of that commodity. Only if you mention it again to me it comes to a quarrel—verstehst du?”