talk about him--he once did me a kindness a long time since. I suppose
you are in his confidence? Has he told you why his father sent him away
from the University?"

My reply to this was, I am afraid, rather absently given. The truth is,
my mind was running on some earlier words which had dropped from the old
lady's lips. "He once did me a kindness a long time since." When had I
last heard that commonplace phrase? and why did I remember it so readily
when I now heard it again?

"Ah, his father did a wise thing in separating him from that woman and
her daughter!" Frau Meyer went on. "Madame Fontaine deliberately
entrapped the poor boy into the engagement. But perhaps you are a friend
of hers? In that case, I retract and apologize."

"Quite needless," I said.

"You are _not_ a friend of Madame Fontaine?" she persisted.

This cool attempt to force an answer from me failed in its object. It was
like being cross-examined in a court of law; and, in our common English
phrase, "it set my back up." In the strict sense of the word, Madame
Fontaine might be termed an acquaintance, but certainly not a friend, of
mine. For once, I took the prudent course, and said, No.

Frau Meyer's expansive bosom emitted a hearty sigh of relief. "Ah!" she
said, "now I can talk freely--in Fritz's interest, mind. You are a young
man like himself, he will be disposed to listen to you. Do all you can to
back his father's influence, and cure him of his infatuation. I tell you
plainly, his marriage would be his ruin!"