To say that I actually distrusted and disliked her would be far from the truth.

Distrust and dislike would have protected me, in some degree at least, from feeling her influence as I certainly did feel it.

How that influence was exerted--whether it was through her eyes, or through her manner, or, to speak the jargon of these latter days, through some "magnetic emanation" from her, which invisibly overpowered me--is more than I can possibly say.

I can only report that she contrived by slow degrees to subject the action of my will more and more completely to the action of hers, until I found myself answering her most insidious questions as unreservedly as if she had been in very truth my intimate and trusted friend.
"And is this your first visit to Frankfort, Mr.David ?" she began.
"Oh, no, madam! I have been at Frankfort on two former occasions." "Ah, indeed?
And have you always stayed with Mr.Keller ?" "Always." She looked unaccountably interested when she heard that reply, brief as it was.
"Then, of course, you are intimate with him," she said.

"Intimate enough, perhaps, to ask a favor or to introduce a friend ?" I made a futile attempt to answer this cautiously.
"As intimate, madam, as a young clerk in the business can hope to be with a partner," I said.
"A clerk in the business ?" she repeated.