heavy-lidded eyes of hers seemed to be looking straight into my heart,
and surprising all my secrets. To say that I actually distrusted and
disliked her would be far from the truth. Distrust and dislike would have

protected me, in some degree at least, from feeling her influence as I
certainly did feel it. How that influence was exerted--whether it was
through her eyes, or through her manner, or, to speak the jargon of these
latter days, through some "magnetic emanation" from her, which invisibly
overpowered me--is more than I can possibly say. I can only report that
she contrived by slow degrees to subject the action of my will more and
more completely to the action of hers, until I found myself answering her
most insidious questions as unreservedly as if she had been in very truth
my intimate and trusted friend.

"And is this your first visit to Frankfort, Mr. David?" she began.

"Oh, no, madam! I have been at Frankfort on two former occasions."

"Ah, indeed? And have you always stayed with Mr. Keller?"

"Always."

She looked unaccountably interested when she heard that reply, brief as
it was.

"Then, of course, you are intimate with him," she said. "Intimate enough,
perhaps, to ask a favor or to introduce a friend?"

I made a futile attempt to answer this cautiously.