"Indeed no! Would I," he struck himself gloomily upon the breast, "would I intrude upon a young Fräulein, and attack her protector? It was that bottle—that last bottle.... I knew—at the time.... I offer you my apology. I can do no more—unless you would have satisfaction—no?"
"I guess I had all the satisfaction that was coming to me yesterday," said Billy. "You've got a fist like a professional. But there's no harm done.... Only you want to get over taking that last bottle and offering presents to young ladies," he concluded, with an accent of youthful severity.
The German nodded a depressed head. His melancholy, bloodshot eyes fixed themselves sadly upon Billy. "Ach, it is so," he assented meekly, "but when one has a sadness—" He sighed.
"Yes, of course, that's tough," agreed Billy sympathetically. "I hate a sadness."
"Perhaps you have known—?" The other's eyes lifted toward him, then dropped dispiritedly. "But, no, you are too young. But I—Ach!" He added in his own tongue a line of which Billy caught geliebt and gelebt, and so nodded understandingly.
"That geliebing business is bad stuff," he returned, and again the other tugged at his mustaches with a nervous hand and shook his big blond head.
"She was to have met me here," he said abruptly. "She wrote—I was to come quick—and then she comes not. That is woman, the ewige weibliche." He scowled. "But, Gott, how enchantment was in her!"
Billy heard himself sigh in unison. The phrase suggested Arlee. And the situation was not dissimilar. He felt a positive sympathy for the big blond fellow in his pronounced clothes and glossy boots and careful boutonnière.... He smiled in friendly fashion.
"She'll come along yet," he prophesied, "and if she doesn't, just you go out after her. I wouldn't take too many chances in the waiting game."
The German shook his head. His blue eyes swam with sentimental moisture. "You do not understand," he said. "She went with another—I must wait for her to come away. I have no address—so?"