Uncle Joachim gave me a side-glance from his half-shut eyes. "Herr Weissbrod," he said, "you are an honest fellow, and you revered my niece as if she were a saint. I can tell you how all this agrees. As a future pastor, you must know what is to be expected of women, the best of whom are often the most perplexing. You see, three years ago, this Spiegelberg, or Spielberg, as he now calls himself, had the insolence to write her a letter, which she did not answer. But a girl like her does not willingly remain in debt for anything. What she has done now is the reply to that old letter." I stared at him with dilated eyes. "Yes," he continued, "what _is_ to be, _will_ be. I thought then the matter was ended once for all, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating! That devil of a fellow, with his dove-like eyes, was more cunning than I. At that time he was living in Berlin, at the same hotel where I had gone with Luise, a respectable second-rate house in Mohrenstrasse, for our means did not allow us to go to the Hotel du Nord or Meinhardt's. She noticed the black-haired gentleman who sat opposite to us at the table, and talked so well, and he did not seem a bad fellow to me either. I inquired who he was. An actor, I was told, who played at the Royal Theatre. 'We must go there once, uncle,' she said, 'as a matter of courtesy,' and I was weak enough not to say no. What could I ever refuse her? Especially with her love for the stage. So we saw him act, and he did not play his part badly; and, as the women were crazy over him, he had a great success. I have forgotten the play, I never had much fancy for the theatre; everything always seemed to me bombastic and exaggerated, and the most touching passages moved me less than when my Diana gets a thorn into her paw and whines. But he seemed to please Luise greatly. So I was obliged to go with her three or four times, when Herr Constantin Spielberg's name was on the bills. Well, no great misfortune could have come from that. The worst of it was that Luise caught fire from the flashing sparks he scattered around him when he stood on the stage in his romantic costumes and assumed the most melting tones of love. 'Luise,' I said, jestingly, 'you must not forget that Herr Spielberg did not compose the works of Schiller or Goethe, but simply acts them. Still, he did not need to declame; when he was merely sitting at the hotel table, talking about the weather, she listened as though he was expounding the gospel. And there was something in his voice that might well turn a young girl's head--she was twenty-one, but she had never been in love--and even when he was not behind the footlights he could look as honest and innocent as a pastor's son or you yourself, Sir Tutor.