went off
for his morning walk he saw him come out of the reading-room and take
his way down the Alte Wiese. He went directly back to his daughter, and
reported Burnamy's behavior with entire exactness. He dwelt upon his
making the best of a bad business in refusing to help Stoller out of it,
dishonorably and mendaciously; but he did not conceal that it was a bad
business.

"Now, you know all about it," he said at the end, "and I leave the whole
thing to you. If you prefer, you can see Mrs. March. I don't know but
I'd rather you'd satisfy yourself--"

"I will not see Mrs. March. Do you think I would go back of you in that
way? I am satisfied now."

XXXIX.

Instead of Burnamy, Mrs. Adding and her son now breakfasted with the
Marches at the Posthof, and the boy was with March throughout the day a
good deal. He rectified his impressions of life in Carlsbad by March's
greater wisdom and experience, and did his best to anticipate his
opinions and conform to his conclusions. This was not easy, for
sometimes he could not conceal from himself, that March's opinions
were whimsical, and his conclusions fantastic; and he could not always
conceal from March that he was matching them with Kenby's on some
points, and suffering from their divergence. He came to join the sage in
his early visit to the springs, and they walked up and down talking; and
they went off together on long strolls in which Rose was proud to bear
him company. He was patient of the absences from which he was often
answered, and he learned to distinguish between the earnest and the
irony of which March's replies seemed to be mixed. He examined him upon
many features of German civilization, but chiefly upon the treatment of
women in it; and upon this his philosopher was less satisfactory than
he could have wished him to be. He tried to excuse his trifling as an
escape from the painful stress of questions which he found so afflicting
himself; but in the matter of the woman-and-dog teams, this was not
easy. March owned that the notion of their being yokemates was shocking;
but he urged that it was a stage of evolution, and a distinct advance
upon the time when women dragged the carts without the help of the dogs;
and that the time might not be far distant when the dogs would drag the
carts without the help of the women.

Rose surmised a joke, and he tried to enjoy it, but inwardly he was
troubled by his friend's apparent acceptance of unjust things on thei