"I have something to tell you that will explain all; but first you
must give me your word that you will tell no one."

"I trust you wholly," said the father. "I will not reveal what you
may say to me."

"Well," returned the son, "I am engaged to marry Jenny von
Westphalen. She wishes it kept a secret from her father, but I am
at liberty to tell you of it."

The elder Marx was at once shocked and seriously disturbed. Baron
von Westphalen was his old and intimate friend. No thought of
romance between their children had ever come into his mind. It
seemed disloyal to keep the verlobung of Karl and Jenny a secret;
for should it be revealed, what would the baron think of Marx?
Their disparity of rank and fortune would make the whole affair
stand out as something wrong and underhand.

The father endeavored to make his son see all this. He begged him
to go and tell the baron, but young Marx was not to be persuaded.

"Send me to Berlin," he said, "and we shall again be separated;
but I shall work and make a name for myself, so that when I return
neither Jenny nor her father will have occasion to be disturbed by
our engagement."

With these words he half satisfied his father, and before long he
was sent to Berlin, where he fell manfully upon his studies. His
father had insisted that he should study law; but his own tastes
were for philosophy and history. He attended lectures in