e him while it was still in the gray of
the morning, and not a sound could be heard in the house below.

The tops of the pine-trees, seen through the broad studio-window,
recalled to his mind where he was, and how and why he had strayed
thither.

In the afternoon he had met the lieutenant, whom he had not seen before
for a week, although he had zealously frequented all the places where
Schnetz was generally to be found. He knew that Irene had left the city
with her uncle. In his dull consternation upon learning this in reply
to an indirect inquiry at the hotel, he had not even inquired in which
direction they had gone. She had fled from him, that he knew; his mere
silent presence sufficed to frighten her away, to make the town in
which he lived distasteful to her. Whither had she fled? To Italy, as
she had at first planned?--to the east or to the west? What did it
matter to him, since he dared not follow her? Nor did he really care to
make any inquiries of Schnetz, who undoubtedly knew all about it. And
yet he was eager to see the only human being who might possibly give
him news of her. And when at last he encountered him in the street,
after a day of depression and brooding, on which he had not even seen
Jansen and had neglected his work, his heart beat so fast and his face
flushed so deeply that it seemed as if his unsuspecting friend could
not help reading all his secret thoughts in his eyes. And it really did
so happen that the very first words which Schnetz ejaculated, in reply
to Felix's inquiry as to how he was, had reference to the fugitives.

Things went wretchedly with him. He had hoped to be rid of his serfdom
and slavery to woman, now that his whimsical little princess had gone
off with her servile valet of an uncle! Vain idea! The chain which held
him now reached as far as Starnberg, and only an hour ago he had felt
himself jerked by it in anything but a gentle way. A note from the
uncle summoned him to come out in all haste on the following day.
Visits had been announced for Sunday from all manner of youthful _haute
voles_, noble cousins and their followers; but the old lion-hunter had
previously accepted an invitation to a shooting-match at Seefeld, which
it would be quite impossible for him to escape, and his niece, poor
child, who, for some reason or other, was daily growing paler and more
nervous in the country air, felt herself quite incapable of doing the
honors of the little villa without the ass