He had perfectly convinced me now, and although I said nothing he must have felt his victory. His face grew calm, and pointing at my trunk, he said:
"Then you have at last grasped what I meant at our parting, and have freed yourself from the narrow ways of country life and are willing to look out for a situation here?"
I told him quickly what I was about to do.
"That beats everything," he said, when I had finished. "Have you gone mad?"
"Why should I have gone mad? Didn't you tell me yourself that I must try to get on?"
"Are you really so silly that you do not understand that you have no right whatever to go in for such a situation as you have described to me?"
"Are you really ignorant of the fact," he continued, without paying any attention to my question, "that people like that do not need a servant, but a ladylike person, somebody who knows how to behave, and possesses good manners, and can teach them to the children in her charge? Furthermore, do you not know that you have not a grain of what is called 'polish'?"
I gave a little sob, and after hearing that he continued quickly: "That is, of course, not your fault. Your intercourse with nothing but country-folk cannot have taught you witty, amiable, and smart behaviour; cannot have given you that indefinable something which makes all the difference between an educated and an uneducated person; cannot have imparted that knowledge to you, without which one is nothing, a nobody, a mere cipher?"
I believed every word of it and cried softly.
"If I were in your place I should not travel down to Buda-Pesth, but stay here. I will use whatever influence I have with my friends, and try to find you a situation. Perhaps you could get a post as cashier somewhere in a café."
"No," I said, controlling my tears all in a moment, "I won't do that."
"Why not? They generally make a lot of money, and a good match at the end."
"No," I said again, and shook my head decisively, "I would rather go to Buda-Pesth."
"He that will not be counselled cannot be helped. What train do you go by?"
"I am sorry to say that I can't see you off then. I have got a _rendezvous_ at eight o'clock."
"A _rendezvous_," he corrected. "There you are again; you know nothing."