"They say he was a senator once," went on Weaver, doubtful of what he had got into;
"I don't know."
"Ah," returned Gerhardt, measurably relieved. "Senator Brander. Yes. He has come sometimes—so.
Well, what of it?"
"It is nothing," returned the neighbor, "only they talk.
He is no longer a young man, you know.
Your daughter, she goes out with him now a few times.
These people, they see that, and now they talk about her.
I thought you might want to know."
Gerhardt was shocked to the depths of his being by these terrible words.
People must have a reason for saying such things.
Jennie and her mother were seriously at fault.
Still he did not hesitate to defend his daughter.
"He is a friend of the family," he said confusedly.
"People should not talk until they know.
My daughter has done nothing."
"That is so. It is nothing," continued Weaver.
"People talk before they have any grounds.
You and I are old friends. I thought you might want to know."
Gerhardt stood there motionless another minute or so t his jaw fallen and a strange helplessness upon him.
The world was such a grim thing to have antagonistic to you.
Its opinions and good favor were so essential.
How hard he had tried to live up to its rules!
Why should it not be satisfied and let him alone?
"I am glad you told me," he murmured as he started homeward.
"I will see about it.
Good-by."
Gerhardt took the first opportunity to question his wife.
"What is this about Senator Brander coming out to call on Jennie?" he asked in German.
"The neighbors are talking about it."
"Why, nothing," answered Mrs. Gerhardt, in the same language.
She was decidedly taken aback at his question.
"He did call two or three times."
"You didn't tell me that," he returned, a sense of her frailty in tolerating and shielding such weakness in one of their children irritating him.
"No," she replied, absolutely nonplussed.
"He has only been here two or three times."
"Two or three times!" exclaimed Gerhardt, the German tendency to talk loud coming upon him.
"Two or three times!
The whole neighborhood talks about it.
What is this, then?"
"He only called two or three times," Mrs. Gerhardt repeated weakly.
"Weaver comes to me on the street," continued Gerhardt, "and tells me that my neighbors are talking of the man my daughter is going with.
I didn't know anything about it.
There I stood. I didn't know what to say.
What kind of a way is that?
What must the man think of me?"
"There is nothing the matter," declared the mother, using an effective German idiom.
"Jennie has gone walking with him once or twice.
He has called here at the house.
What is there now in that for the people to talk about?