"After all, I cannot think hard of you about it. You are still so young; and I often do not know myself on what footing I am standing with the girl. But this much is clear: out of pure obstinacy against her father, and perhaps a little calculation to raise her own value, and perhaps, too, because she thinks it will make no difference anyhow, but mainly out of mere stubbornness and self-will, has she put on these airs of a princess, and behaves as if for her I and the rest had no existence. If she suddenly began to coquet with you in my--I should say in our presence, that really signifies nothing; it is but a little pleasantry that she allows herself with you, and which has no further consequences; but it must provoke the old man, and it did provoke him. You did not observe it, you say, but I can assure you he bit his lip and stroked his beard as he always does when anything vexes him." The little man had no notion what a tumult he was stirring up in my breast; he took my silence for acquiescence and for acknowledgement of his superior wisdom, and so proceeded, in delight at being able to speak of such interesting topics and to have secured such an attentive listener. "I fancy that the whole conduct of the young lady puts a spoke in his wheel. Do you know how much I have lost to him during the six months that I have been here? Over eight hundred _thalers_. And Trantow nearly twice as much; and all the rest are cursing their ill-fortune. He has had a wonderful run of luck, it is true; it is not always so; but then when he loses one must take it out in his wine and his cognac, and you can imagine the prices he rates them at. Well, one wants something at least for one's money; for the sake of such a pretty girl one lets a couple of hundreds go, and does not watch the old man's hands too closely. But it used to be all quite different; she used to join in the play, and smoke cigars with the gentlemen, and go out shooting and riding--the wilder the horses the better she liked it. It used to be a heathenish life, Sylow says, and he ought to know. But since last summer, and that affair with the prince----" "What affair was that?" I asked. I was consumed with the desire to hear everything that Herr von Granow had to tell. I no longer felt the contumely which this man was heaping upon my kind host and upon the maiden I adored; or if I did, I thought that the reckoning should come afterwards, but first I must hear all. "You don't know that?" he inquired, eagerly. "But, to be sure, who could have told you? Trantow is mute as a fish, and the others don't know what to think of you. I hold you for an honest fellow, and do not believe that you are a spy, or leagued with the old man; his looks at dinner were too queer for that. You won't tell him what I have been saying to you, will you?" "Not a word," I said.