“Listen!” said she, very earnestly, and, I remember it now, though I did not heed it then, with wistful kindness. “I do not bear malice—you are so young and inexperienced. I wish you were more friendly, but I care for you too much to be rebuffed by a trifle. I will tell you about Courvoisier.”
“Thank you,” said I, hastily, “I beg you will do no such thing.”
“I know his story. I can tell you the truth about him.”
“I decline to discuss the subject,” said I, thinking of Eugen, and passionately refusing the idea of discussing him, gossiping about him, with any one.
Anna looked surprised; then a look of anger crossed her face.
“You can not be in earnest,” said she.
“I assure you I am. I wish you would leave me alone,” I said, exasperated beyond endurance.
“You don’t wish to know what I can tell you about him?”
“No, I don’t. What is more, if you begin talking to me about him, I will put my fingers in my ears, and leave you.”
“Then you may learn it for yourself,” said she, suddenly, in a voice little more than a whisper. “You shall rue your treatment of me. And when you know the lesson by heart, then you will be sorry.”