sible, _mein Fraeulein_," with the same chilly little bow as
before.

Struggling to repress my tears, I said no more, but passed out, cut to
the heart. The door was closed gently behind me. I felt as if it had
closed upon a bright belief of my youth. I leaned for a moment against
the passage wall and pressed my hand against my eyes. From within came
the sound of a child's voice, "_Mein vater_," and the soft, deep murmur
of Eugen's answer; then I went down-stairs and into the open street.

That hated, hateful three thalers ten groschen were still clasped in my
hand. What was I to do with it? Throw it into the Rhine, and wash it
away forever? Give it to some one in need? Fling it into the gutter?
Send it him by post? I dismissed that idea for what it was worth. No; I
would obey his prohibition. I would keep it--those very coins, and when
I felt inclined to be proud and conceited about anything on my own
account, or disposed to put down superhuman charms to the account of
others, I would go and look at them, and they would preach me eloquent
sermons.

As I went into the house, up the stairs to my room, the front door
opened again and Anna Sartorius overtook me.

"I thought you had left the probe?" said I, staring at her.

"So I had, _Herzchen_," said she, with her usual ambiguous, mocking
laugh; "but I was not compelled to come home, like a good little girl,
the moment I came out of the Tonhalle. I have been visiting a friend.
But where have you been, for the probe must have been over for some
time? We heard the people go past; indeed, some of them were staying in
the house where I was. Did you take a walk in the moonlight?"

"Good-night," said I, too weary and too indifferent even to answer her.

"It must have been a tiring walk; you seem weary, quite _ermuedet_," said
she, mockingly, and I made no answer.

"A haupt-probe is a dismal thing after all," she called out to me from
the top of the stairs.

From my inmost heart I agreed with her.

CHAPTER XIII.

KAFFEEKLATSCH.

"_Phillis._ I want none o' thy friendship!
_Lesbia._ Then take my enmity!"

"When a number of ladies meet together to discuss matters of importance,
we call it 'Kaffeeklatsch,'" Courvoisier had said to me on that
never-forgotten afternoon of my adventure at Koeln.

It was my first kaffeeklatsch which, in a measure, decided my destiny.
Hitherto, that is, up to the end of June, I had not been at any
entertainment of this kind. At