t the bare recollection of what had passed. "Oh, don't
ask me!" she pleaded piteously; "I can't tell what has come to my
mother--she is so changed, she frightens me. And as for Fritz," she said,
rousing herself, "if he is to be a selfish tyrant, I can tell him this--I
won't marry him at all!"

Mr. Keller turned to Fritz, and pointed contemptuously down the stairs.

"Leave us!" he said. Fritz opened his lips to protest. Mr. Keller
interposed, with a protest of his own. "One of these days," he went on,
"you may possibly have a son. You will not find his society agreeable to
you, when he happens to have made a fool of himself." He pointed down the
stairs for the second time. Fritz retired, frowning portentously. His
father addressed Minna with marked gentleness of manner. "Rest and
recover yourself, my child. I will see your mother, and set things
right."

"Don't go away by yourself, my dear," Mrs. Wagner added kindly; "come
with me to my room."

Mr. Keller entered the drawing-room, and sent Joseph with another
message. "Go up to Madame Fontaine, and say I wish to see her here
immediately."

CHAPTER VIII

The widow presented herself, with a dogged resignation singularly unlike
her customary manner. Her eyes had a set look of hardness; her lips were
fast closed; her usually colorless complexion had faded to a strange
grayish pallor. If her dead husband could have risen from the grave, and
warned Mr. Keller, he would have said, "Once or twice in my life, I have
seen her like that--mind what you are about!"

She puzzled Mr. Keller. He tried to gain time--he bowed and pointed to a
chair. Madame Fontaine took the chair in silence. Her hard eyes looked
straight at the master of the house, overhung more heavily than usual by
their drooping lids. Her thin lips never opened. The whole expression of
the woman said plainly, "You speak first!"

Mr. Keller spoke. His kindly instinct warned him not to refer to Minna,
in alluding to the persons from whom he had derived his information. "I
hear from my son," he said, "that you do not approve of our putting off
the wedding-day, though it is only for a fortnight. Are you aware of the
circumstances?"

"I am aware of the circumstances."

"Your daughter informed you of my sister's illness, I suppose?"

At that first reference to Minna, some inner agitation faintly stirred
the still surface of Madame Fontaine's face.

"Yes," she said. "My thoughtless daughter informed me."