it? Naturally you know nothing of our great forests, or
our people either, I presume."

Hartmut smiled with an unmistakable satisfaction. He had succeeded in
breaking through this icy reserve. All his arts and blandishments had
been exercised in vain, but he now saw that the momentary resentment had
added the charm which was needed to her lovely, cold features, so he
determined to arouse her still further.

If he felt aggrieved he would also find pleasure in exciting her.

"That sounds like a reproof which I shall have to bear," he said
derisively. "Possibly I don't view the affairs of life as you do. I am
accustomed to use other scales of measurement for nature, and for
mortals as well. 'Live and work!' The whole question hinges upon the
definition of these words. I have lived, years at a time, in Paris, that
great central point of all civilization, where life ebbs and flows in a
thousand streams. He who has been wont to stem the tide in these great,
almost overwhelming waters, can nevermore find a place in the little
relations, in the narrow judgments and pedantries, in all this marasmus
which the noble Germans call life."

The insulting expression which he laid upon the last words, obtained for
him his desire. His companion suddenly stood still and measured him from
head to foot, while a flash of anger shot from her cold blue eyes. She
seemed for the minute to have an angry answer at her tongue's end, but
she forced it back, and drawing herself up to her full height, said in a
tone of contempt and disdain:

"You forget, sir, that you are speaking to a German--I now remind you
of that fact."

Hartmut colored to the roots of his hair at this merited reproof given
to a stranger, a foreigner, as she supposed, who had forgotten himself.
What if this girl knew to whom she was talking, what if she ever learned
--a feeling of shame overcame him for the second, but he was a man of
the world and controlled himself once more.

"I beg your pardon," he said, with a slight, half-mocking bow. "I was
under the impression that we were merely exchanging impersonal opinions.
I sincerely regret having annoyed you, Fraeulein."

A scarcely perceptible movement of her head, and a slight shrug of the
shoulders showed him that he had no power to really annoy her.

"I could certainly not think of influencing your judgments, but as our
ideas are so radically opposed, I think it would be better to drop the
conversation altogether."