"Oh, really, Frau Knapf--" I murmured in blushing confusion.

"Sure, it is so," insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step nearer, and sinking
her, voice one hiss lower. "You shouldn't say I said it, but Frau
Nirlanger likes she should look young for her husband. He is much
younger as she is--aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger does not
tell me this, but from other people I have found out." Frau Knapf shook
her head mysteriously a great many times. "But maybe you ain't got such
an interest in Frau Nirlanger, yes?"

"Interest! I'm eaten up with curiosity. You shan't leave this room alive
until you've told me!"

Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. "Now you make jokings, ain't? Well,
I tell you. In Vienna, Frau Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aber
hoch edel--very high born. From the court her family is, and friends
from the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she is different from
the rest. Books she likes, und meetings, und all such komisch things.
And what you think!"

"I don't know," I gasped, hanging on her words, "what DO I think?"

"She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and falls with him in love. Und
her family is mad! But schrecklich mad! Forty years old she is, and
from a noble family, and Konrad Nirlanger is only a student from a
university, and he comes from the Volk. Sehr gebildet he is, but not
high born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs with him away and is married."

Shamelessly I drank it all in. "You don't mean it! Well, then what
happened? She ran away with him--with that chin! and then what?"

Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. She drew a long breath, felt of
the knob of hair, and plunged once more into the story.

"Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, Frau Nirlanger, she has already a
boy who is ten years old, and a fine sum of money that her first husband
left her. Aber when she runs with this poor kerl away from her family,
and her first husband's family is so schrecklich mad that they try by
law to take from her her boy and her money, because she has her highborn
family disgraced, you see? For a year they fight in the courts, and then
it stands that her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but her boy she cannot
have. He will be taken by her highborn family and educated, and he must
forget all about his mamma. To cry it is, ain't it? Das arme Kind! Well,
she can stand it no longer to live where her boy is, and not to see him.
So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a chance to come by Amerika w