"Be so good as to hear me say," replied Fink, lighting the lamp of his tea-kettle, "that I never gave you any right to speak to me thus. I have no wish to quarrel with you, but I shall be much obliged to you henceforth to drop this subject."
"Then I must leave you, for I can speak of nothing else while I have the conviction that you are acting unworthily."
Anton moved to the door. "I give you your choice; either you break with Rosalie, or, dreadful as it is to me to think of it, you break with me. If you do not by to-morrow evening give me an assurance that this intrigue is at an end, I go to Rosalie's mother."
"Good-night, thou stupid Tony!" said Fink.
The following day was a gray one for both.
It was Fink's constant custom, on entering the office, to beckon to his friend, whereupon Anton would leave his place, and exchange a few words as to how Fink had spent the previous evening. But this morning Anton doggedly remained where he was, and bent down over his letters when Fink took his seat opposite him. Whenever they looked up, they had to make as though empty space were before them, and not each other's faces. Fink had found it easy to treat the paternal Ehrenthal as a nonentity, but it was not so in this case; and Anton, who had had no practice in the art of overlooking others, felt himself supremely uncomfortable. Then every thing conspired to make it peculiarly difficult to each to play his part. Schmeie Tinkeles, the unfortunate little Jew who spoke such execrable German, and whom Fink always found especial pleasure in badgering and beating down, made his appearance in the office, and, as usual, a laughable scene ensued. All the clerks watched Fink, and chimed in with him, but Anton had to behave as though Tinkeles were a hundred miles away. Then Mr. Schröter gave him a commission, which obliged him to ask Fink a question, and he had to cough hard to get out the words at all. He received a very short answer, which increased his anger. Finally, when the dinner hour struck, Fink, who used regularly to wait till Anton came for him, walked off with Jordan, who wondered what could keep Wohlfart, to which Fink could only reply that he neither knew nor cared.
During the afternoon Anton could not avoid a few furtive glances at the haughty face opposite him. He thought how dreadful it would be to become estranged from one he so dearly loved; but his resolve was firm as ever. And so it happened that Fink, chancing to look up, met his friend's eyes mournfully fixed upon his face, and this touched him more than the anger of the previous night. He saw that Anton's mind was made up, and the side of the scale in which sat the fair Rosalie kicked the beam. After all, if Anton did, in his virtuous simplicity, tell her mother, the adventure was spoiled, and, still worse, their friendship forever at an end. These reflections furrowed his fine brow.