ded tread from the
opera; the little bowers that overhang the stream are as dark and mute
as the restaurants across the way which serve meals in them by day;
the whole place is as forsaken as other cities at midnight. People get
quickly home to bed, or if they have a mind to snatch a belated joy,
they slip into the Theater-Cafe, where the sleepy Frauleins serve them,
in an exemplary drowse, with plates of cold ham and bottles of the
gently gaseous waters of Giesshubl. Few are of the bold badness which
delights in a supper at Schwarzkopf's, and even these are glad of the
drawn curtains which hide their orgy from the chance passer.

The invalids of Burnamy's party kept together, strengthening themselves
in a mutual purpose not to be tempted to eat anything which was not
strictly 'kurgemass'. Mrs. March played upon the interest which each
of them felt in his own case so artfully that she kept them talking of
their cure, and left Burnamy and Miss Triscoe to a moment on the bridge,
by which they profited, while the others strolled on, to lean against
the parapet and watch the lights in the skies and the water, and be
alone together. The stream shone above and below, and found its way out
of and into the darkness under the successive bridges; the town climbed
into the night with lamp-lit windows here and there, till the woods of
the hill-sides darkened down to meet it, and fold it in an embrace from
which some white edifice showed palely in the farthest gloom.

He tried to make her think they could see that great iron crucifix which
watches over it day and night from its piny cliff. He had a fancy for
a poem, very impressionistic, which should convey the notion of the
crucifix's vigil. He submitted it to her; and they remained talking till
the others had got out of sight and hearing; and she was letting him
keep the hand on her arm which he had put there to hold her from falling
over the parapet, when they were both startled by approaching steps, and
a voice calling, "Look here! Who's running this supper party, anyway?"

His wife had detached March from her group for the mission, as soon as
she felt that the young people were abusing her kindness. They answered
him with hysterical laughter, and Burnamy said, "Why, it's Mr. Stoller's
treat, you know."

At the restaurant, where the proprietor obsequiously met the party on
the threshold and bowed them into a pretty inner room, with a table set
for their supper, Stoller had ga