Effi gave him her hand.  “Oh, you must not say such things.  We women are by no means so bad.”

“Oh, no, certainly not.”

“And when I recall,” continued Effi, “what all I have experienced—­it is not much, for I have gone out but little, and have almost always lived in the country—­but when I recall it, I find that, after all, we always love what is worthy of love.  And then I see, too, at once that you are different from other men.  We women have sharp eyes in such matters.  Perhaps in your case the name has something to do with it.  That was always a favorite assertion of our old pastor Niemeyer.  The name, he loved to say, especially the forename, has a certain mysterious determining influence; and Alonzo Gieshuebler, in my opinion, opens to one a whole new world, indeed I feel almost tempted to say, Alonzo is a romantic name, a fastidious name.”

Gieshuebler smiled with a very unusual degree of satisfaction and mustered up the courage to lay aside his silk hat, which up to this time he had been turning in his hand.  “Yes, most gracious Lady, you hit the nail on the head that time.”

Oh, I understand.  I have heard about the consuls, of Kessin is said to have so many, and at the home of the Spanish consul your father presumably made the acquaintance of the daughter of a sea-captain, a beautiful Andalusian girl, I suppose; Andalusian girls are always beautiful.”

“Precisely as you suppose, most gracious Lady.  And my mother really was a beautiful woman, ill as it behooves me personally to undertake to prove it.  But when your husband came here three years ago she was still alive and still had the same fiery eyes as in her youth.  He will confirm my statement.  I personally take more after the Gieshueblers, who are people of little account, so far as external features are concerned, but otherwise tolerably well favored.  We have been living here now for four generations, a full hundred years, and if there were an apothecary nobility—­”

“You would have a right to claim it.  And I, for my part, accept your claim as proved, and that beyond question.  For us who come of old families it is a very easy matter, because we gladly recognize every sort of noble-mindedness, no matter from what source it may come.  At least that is the way I was brought up by my father, as well as by my mother.  I am a Briest by birth and am descended from the Briest, who, the day before the battle of Fehrbellin, led the sudden attack on Rathenow, of which you may perhaps have heard.”

“Oh, certainly, most gracious Lady, that, you know, is my specialty.”

“Well then I am a von Briest.  And my father has said to me more than a hundred times:  Effi,—­for that is my name—­Effi, here is our beginning, and here only.  When Froben traded the horse, he was that moment a nobleman, and when Luther said, ‘here I stand,’ he was more than ever a nobleman.  And I think, Mr. Gieshuebler, Innstetten was quite right when he assured me you and I should be good friends.”