phy of compassion into practice to his heart's content. Wilhelm
took up his work again at the Laboratory, and also resumed his visits
to the Ellrichs, but it was with an increasing discomfort. The
councilor, who had been distinguished for his services in the financial
transactions with the French Government, had heard the story of the
refusal of the Iron Cross. He thought it very ridiculous, and his early
friendship for Wilhelm became markedly cooler. Even Frau Ellrich's
motherly feeling for him received a check, and modesty and shyness no
longer seemed a sufficient explanation of the unaccountable delay in
his love-making. Only Loulou was apparently the same, whenever he came,
always lively and friendly, but when he left she was affectionate
without any display of emotion, grateful for tender glances, not
withholding quiet kisses, but not offering them--her calm manner almost
mysterious, as if love were simply something superficial and of small
import. Wilhelm could no longer deny that his first love, which had
stirred his being to the depths, was a mistake, but he could not bring
himself to definitely end the existing conditions. Hundreds of times he
was on the point of saying to Loulou that he did not think the tie
between them would secure their happiness, and offering her her
freedom, but as soon as he began his courage would fail him. If people
were present he was confused; if they were alone, her personal
appearance had the same charm for him, or rather it awoke in him the
remembrance of the delight and enthusiasm he had felt in the past, and
prevented him taking a step toward what would do grievous injury to her
girlish vanity, if nothing more.

Would this suspense and these fears, which made him so restless and
unhappy, always last? He might write a letter to Loulou, as he was
unable to say what he wished to in the light of her beautiful brown
eyes. Then he threw this idea aside as unworthy of consideration; he
could not simply dismiss a girl whom he loved by means of the post. The
simple thing to do seemed to wait, until, on the other side, they
should grow disgusted with him, and would tell him to go. This agreed
with his passive character, which was timidly inclined to draw back
before the rushing current of events, and preferred to be carried along
by them, just as a willow leaf is borne along on the surface of a
stream. Wilhelm could not help noticing that Herr von Pechlar was now a
favorite guest at the E