“This is what I have come to tell you, Herr Banquier. The other day I drove down to Monsieur Chauraux’ farm on the pretext of selling him a lottery ticket and incidentally pumped him about his daughter’s relations with your worthy nephew. He thinks the young man is going to marry his daughter—” “Why didn’t you tell him Albert is living on my charity?” burst out Leopold Zorn. “Yes, Herr Banquier, I did hint to him that the young man has nothing beyond that his philanthropic uncle sees fit to give him. Perhaps I should have alluded to the difference in their religions.” Aaron looked up at his master inquiringly. “Religion or no religion, the scamp has no intention of marrying her. Go and tell him that.” “I hope it’s not too late.” “Then don’t stand jabbering here. Go over at once and see the Frenchman again.” “Yes, Herr Banquier, I know where I can get a vehicle and can go at once—I hope it’s not too late—I saw him with her at the Swiss Pavilion yesterday—Yes, Herr Banquier, I can get a vehicle around the corner and go at once,” Aaron repeated as he humbly bowed out of the banker’s presence. A few days later Albert approached the farmhouse with bouncing joy in his heart. He had told Eugenie at their last rendezvous in the city what time he would get to the farm and she was to meet him at a little grove about half a mile from the house. Eugenie was still feigning bashfulness in her father’s presence. It was early autumn, heaps of dead leaves in the grove. Albert pondered at her absence. On other occasions he had found her standing near a silver birch waiting for him or concealed in a clump of underbrush playing hide and seek with him. He loved those tantalizing moments, running this way and that, punctuated by her silver laughter, and when he would catch her, panting and out of breath, he would clasp her in his arms and kiss her throat and lips and hair. The partly denuded trees now disclosed her absence at a glance. He stood still and waited. Then he stepped out in the open and looked down the road but she was not in sight. His eagerness made him nervous. She had never failed in their appointments. When he had approached the grove blissful expectancy was in his breast, and the disappointment was doubly provoking. Then fear possessed him. She might be ill. After a space he strode toward her home. It was a one-story, straw-thatched cottage, and as he entered the little yard he looked at once at the door and at the two little windows on either side. No one seemed around. Albert rapped on the door. He heard a voice within. It was M. Chauraux’s voice; his voice in anger. He rapped again. Silence. Albert’s heart throbbed with misgivings. Again he knocked. The door soon opened with a rapid movement, M. Chauraux on the threshold with a forbidding look in his round brown eyes. Albert greeted him with his usual cordiality but with a fast-beating heart.