are
you studying if I may ask? You are still a student, are you not?"

I felt myself blush crimson. For a moment I doubted whether I would not
deny my position. However I stuck to the truth. "We shall pass our
final examination at Easter," I said.

He was magnanimous enough not to misuse his superiority.

"So young," he said, with a good-natured shake of the head, "and
already such Don Juans! You seem entitled to fair hopes, my
young friend, and if you would only accustom yourself to more
self-restraint--"

"Forgive me," said I, "but I must return to the matter in hand. My
friend, as you rightly perceive, has a serious affection for this girl,
and feels himself deeply aggrieved by the disrespectful manner in which
you behaved to her. I believe he might be satisfied by a few lines in
your handwriting, expressing your regret for your conduct to Fraeulein
Lottka. If not--"

He looked askance at me with such amazement, that I felt suddenly
paralysed.

"Are you really in earnest?" he said. "You look too intelligent for me
to believe that you can approve of this commission you have undertaken
for your friend. My conduct to Fraeulein Lottka! That is going a little
too far! No, my good friend, let us make ourselves as little absurd as
we can. Have you considered what you are proposing to me? With all the
respect to the honourable feelings and true-heartedness of a student of
the upper class, can he seriously imagine that I owe him reparation,
because in a public shop I chanced to stroke a girl under the chin." He
burst out laughing, and threw the end of his cigarette out of the
window.

I rose. "I doubt," I said, "that this will satisfy my friend. If you
would at least declare that you know nothing of Fraeulein Lottka, which
casts a shadow on her reputation."

"Just sit down, and hear me out," he broke in.

"Now that I see you are really in earnest, it is my duty to tell you
the truth in the interests of your friend who takes up the case so
tragically, that he is sure to commit himself to some folly. About ten
years ago I was acquainted with a lady of a certain character here in
Berlin. She was a German, but bore a Polish name, that of her first
lover, a Polish nobleman, who had left her, _plantee la_, with one
child. As she was beautiful and not inconsolable, she found plenty of
adorers, and lived in wealth, keeping a small gambling-house too; and I
can well remember the strange impression it made on me when first