Three young men were playing at pool. The marker addressed them all as "Herr Doctor," so I saw that they must be medical students. My attention was particularly drawn to one of the three—a slender and rather delicate-looking man of middle height, with marked but finely cut features. He would have looked pale anyhow, but the intense blue-black of his wavy hair and beard made him appear almost startlingly pallid. His face could not be called handsome—his lips were too thin for that, and his forehead too low. The moment I caught sight of his face, I saw that he had a story; it did not occur to me at first that I had ever seen him before. But suddenly, when the thin lips were firmly pressed together, and the low forehead was contracted into a frown at some jesting remark of one of his companions, it flashed upon me all at once—"That is black Aaron!" And so it was. I can hardly tell whether our meeting was a pleasurable one; at any rate, our pleasure was not unmixed. When two young people have been separated for some time, they are apt to be rather shy with each other when they first meet, for they hardly know how much change may have taken place in each other's ways and ideas. This is doubly the case after a long separation, such as Aaron's and mine. We strove hard to bring back the old footing that had existed between us, but in vain. Our conversation was disjointed, and threatened to come to a speedy conclusion, when I suddenly remembered the message with which I had been intrusted.
"Somebody at Barnow," I said, "is very much interested in your career. Can you guess who it is?"
"No." And so saying he blew a cloud of tobacco-smoke nonchalantly in the air. "My dear boy, you have no idea how much trouble I have given myself to forget the people at Barnow, entirely—absolutely."
"Even your guardian angel, little Rachel?"
"What, was it Rachel?" he exclaimed, eagerly. And then resuming his indifferent manner: "What has become of the little girl? She must be pretty big now, though—sixteen years old or thereabout."
"And very beautiful too," I replied.
I then proceeded to give him such an enthusiastic description of her beauty and intelligence, that he could not help smiling. But when I had finished, he said, gravely—"I am very sorry to hear it—very!"
"Why? What do you mean?"
"I am very grateful to the little guardian angel of my boyhood, and should like her to be happy. But there's very small hope of that, if she is really as beautiful and intelligent as you say. She will either be tempted beyond her power of resistance, and fall a prey to some Polish or Hungarian swell in spite of all her wisdom...."
"Impossible!" I cried, indignantly.