only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I
understood his mumble to mean that "he didn't know any game."

"Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off,"
I said tearing open the pack. "Have you heard that we are universally
supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who--of course. I am
really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to
think me dangerous?"

As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt
flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in
his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but
not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with
Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I
saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural
forces are not quarrelsome. You can't quarrel with the wind that
inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street
full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder,
falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law
by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but
of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide
interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed
without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and
more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless
voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half
an hour.

It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never
dreamed of marrying Hermann's niece. Could any necessity have been more
extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard