form you, that it will be useless to
reject me, ill-treat me, or even plunge into the water again to get rid
of me; the poodle will leap in after you and bring you out again, even
if he's obliged to do it with his teeth.

"I know that if you were to vouchsafe me a word, you would ask by what
right I intrude upon you, what you are to me, why I annoy you with the
information of my poodle qualities? Dear Fraeulein, I might answer that
I can no more give you a reason than the poodle could in the same
situation; it is mere instinct. But a still better reply would be this:
the misfortune of my life, dear friend, has been that I've always done
everything by halves. It grieves me deeply, that this time also, in
saving your life, I seem to have only half succeeded, and therefore I
wish to see if I cannot complete my task, if I devote to it all my
energies, my small portion of brains and heart and my large share of
obstinacy.

"Don't be offended by the not very choice mode I take of expressing
myself, dear Christiane! You may believe that I'm in the most solemn
earnest. Do you know what I told the brothers in the tun, when I first
saw you and received that well merited dismissal you gave? I said that
you were a whole-hearted woman, for whom I had a great respect. And
this respect I still feel, and because I believe you to be one of the
rare women, to whom an honest man may without the slightest peril offer
his heart and hand--"

"Hush! Oh! for God's sake, hush!" she interrupted, starting from her
rigid immobility. "Go, go--say no more--each word is like a red hot
needle piercing my wounded flesh. You don't know--you shall never
know--"

"Nonsense, dear Fraeulein! I shall never know! As if I wanted to know
anything, as if anything I could learn would be able to change my
opinion of you! No, my honored friend, that would not be a poodle's
trait. His master may steal spoons, may be the saviour of his native
land; it makes no difference to the dog, he licks his hand with equal
respect. The motive you had for taking that premature cold bath, I
shall never ask to know in this world. Of course you were not entirely
yourself, you had been tasting some of the bitter wormy apples, that
hung on the tree of knowledge, and the cramps which ensued appeared
unendurable. So be it! That belongs to the past, you've rid yourself of
the indigestion by a violent remedy, and can gradually regain a taste
for the household fare life serves up on an