"Madam," I replied, "let us have done with this. I have never said one word to the young lady in question of my feelings toward her, and it is in the highest degree improper and unjust that she should be discussed in connection with them. I have laid the matter before Mother Anastasia, as she stands in position of parent to the young lady; but with no one else can I possibly act, or even discuss the subject," and I bowed.
"I don't like this," she said, without noticing that I had taken leave of her. "Mother Anastasia did not intend to leave here until to-morrow, and she went away early this morning. She has some pressing business on hand, and ten chances to one she has gone to fillip your young lady out of your sight and hearing. Don't you see that it would not look at all well for one of her sisters to marry, or even to receive the attentions of a gentleman, immediately after she had left the institution?"
This suggestion, so like my own suspicions, greatly disturbed me.
"Are you in earnest," said I, "or is all this chaffer? What reasonable interest can you take in me and my affairs?"
"I take no interest whatever," said she, "excepting that I have heard you are both eccentric and respectable, and that I have found you amusing, and in this class of people I am always interested. But I will say to you that if there is a woman in that House who might make a suitable and satisfactory marriage, if an opportunity were allowed her, I believe she should be allowed the opportunity, and, acting upon general principles of justice and a desire to benefit my fellow-mortals, I should use my influence to give it to her. So you see that I should really be acting for the girl, and not for you, although of course it would amount to the same thing. And if Mother Anastasia has gone to pull down the curtain on this little drama, I am all the more anxious to jerk it up again. Come, now, Mr. Lover in Check,--and when I first heard your name I had no idea how well it fitted,--confide in me. It would delight me to be in this fight; and you can see for yourself that it would be a very humdrum matter for me to join your opponents, even if I should be of their opinion. They do not need my help."