tre of his thoughts and feelings. In it was
expressed everything that separated him from other men and at the same
time drew him to them. It controlled him unconditionally, until a
second, equally fearful and ridiculous passion became affiliated with
it.

IV

Daniel had hesitated for a long while about making use of the letter of
introduction from Frau von Erfft. Gertrude then took to begging him to
go to the Baroness. "If I go merely to please you, my action will avenge
itself on you," he said.

"If I understood why you hesitate, I would not ask you," she replied in
a tone of evident discomfort.

"I found so much there in Erfft," said he, "so much human kindness that
was new to me; I dislike the idea of seeing some ulterior motive back of
it, or of putting one there myself. Do you understand now?" She nodded.

"But must is stronger than may," he concluded, and went.

The Baroness became quite interested in his case. The position of second
Kapellmeister at the City Theatre was vacant, and she tried to have
Daniel appointed to it. She was promised that it would be given to him;
but the usual intrigues were spun behind her back; and when she urged
that the matter be settled immediately and in favour of her candidate,
she was fed on dissembling consolation. She was quite surprised to be
brought face to face with hostile opposition, which seemed to spring
from every side as if by agreement against the young musician. Not a
single one of his enemies, however, allowed themselves to be seen, and
no one heard from by correspondence. It was the first time that she had
come in conflict with the world in a business way; there was something
touching in her indignation at the display of cowardly fraud.

Finally, after a long, and for her humiliating, interview with that
chief of cosmopolitan brokers, Alexander Doermaul, Daniel's engagement
for the coming spring was agreed upon.

In the meantime the Baroness took lessons from Daniel. She expressed a
desire to familiarise herself with the standard piano compositions, and
to be given a really practical introduction to their meaning and the
right method of interpreting them.

It was long before she became accustomed to his cold and morose
sternness. She had the feeling that he was pulling her out of a nice
warm bath into a cold, cutting draught. She longed to return to her
twilights, her ecstatic moods, her melancholy reveries.

Once he ex