Frau Lutzler folded her arms and composed herself to tell me a history.
“Ja, Fräulein, the post would have been offered to Herr Courvoisier, only, you see, he has turned out a good-for-nothing. But perhaps you heard about that?”
“Oh, yes! I know all about it,” said I, hastily, as I passed my handkerchief over my mouth to hide the spasm of pain which contracted it.
“Of course, considering all that, the Direktion could not offer it to him, so they proposed it to Herr Helfen—you know Herr Helfen, Fräulein, nicht?”
I nodded.
“A good young man! a worthy young man, and so popular with his companions! Aber denken sie nur! The authorities might have been offering him an insult instead of a good post. He refused it then and there; would not stop to consider about it—in fact, he was quite angry about it. The gentleman who was chosen at last was a stranger, from Hanover.”
“Herr Helfen refused it—why, do you know?”
“They say, because he was so fond of Herr Courvoisier, and would not be set above him. It may be so. I know for a certainty that, so far from taking part against Herr Courvoisier, he would not even believe the story against him, though he could not deny it, and did not try to deny it. Aber, Fräulein—what hearts men must have! To have lived three years, and let the world think him an honest man, when all the time he had that on his conscience! Schrecklich!”
Adelaide and Courvoisier, it seemed, might almost be pelted with the same stones.
“His wife, they say, died of grief at the disgrace—”