? You can
not be a stranger to us, for we have been attached to you, and,
personally, I am deeply indebted to you. You can no more be our friend,
for you have yourself forcibly rent the ties that bound us. You reminded
me, just when I least expected it, that a mere business contract alone
bound you to my counting-house. What are you seeking now? Do you want a
place in my office, or do you, as appears, want much more?"

"I want nothing," cried Anton, in the utmost excitement--"nothing but a
reconciliation with you. I want neither a place in your office, nor any
thing else. When I left the baron, I felt that my first step must be to
your house, my next to seek employment elsewhere. Whatever I may have
lost during the past year, I have not lost my self-respect; and had you
met me as kindly as I felt toward you, I should have told you in the
course of our first hour together what you now demand. I am aware that
here I can not stay. I used to feel this when far away, as often as I
thought of this house. Since I have entered its walls and seen your
sister again, I know that I can not remain here without acting
dishonorably."

The merchant went to the window, and silently looked out into the night.
When he turned round again the hard expression had left his face, and he
looked searchingly at Anton. "That was well spoken, Wohlfart," said he
at length, "and I hope sincerely meant. I will be equally open toward
you in saying that I still regret that you have left us. I knew you as
an older man seldom knows a younger; I could thoroughly trust you. Now,
dear Wohlfart, you are become a stranger to me; forgive me what I am
about to say. An unregulated imagination allured you into circumstances
which could not but be morally unhealthy. You have been the confidant
of a bankrupt and a debtor, who may have retained many amiable
characteristics, but who must have lost, in his dealings with
unprincipled men, what we here in this firm call honor. I gladly assume
that your uprightness refused to do any thing contrary to your sense of
right; but, Wohlfart, I repeat to you what I have said before: any
permanent dealings with the weak and wicked bring the best man into
danger. Gradually and imperceptibly his standard becomes lowered, and
necessity compels him to agree to measures that elsewhere he would have
peremptorily rejected. I am convinced that you are still what the world
calls an upright man of business, but I do not know whether you h