aking out?" she asked with embarrassment, and without the
remotest display of warmth.

"You know that I am beating a perforated drum, Eleanore." After a pause
he added: "But whatever people may do or fail to do, between us two
there must be a clear understanding: Are you going to Paris?"

She dropped her head in silence. "Well, I could go; there is nothing to
prevent me," she said, softly and with hesitation. "But you see how it
is. I am no longer as I used to be. Formerly I could scarcely picture
the happiness I would derive from having some one there in whom I could
confide and who would be interested in me. I would not have hesitated
for a moment. But now? If I go, what becomes clear from my going? And if
I stay here, what will be clear? I have already told you, Daniel, that I
don't understand you. How terrible it is to have to say that! What do
you want now? How is all this going to come out?"

"Eleanore, do you recall Benda's last letter? You yourself brought it to
me, and after that I was a different person. He wrote to me in that
letter just as if he had never heard of Gertrude, and said that I should
not pass you by. He wrote that we two were destined for each other, and
neither for any one else in the world. Of course you recall how I acted
after reading the letter. And even before that: Do you remember the day
of the wedding when you put the myrtle wreath on? Why, I knew then that
I had lost everything, that my real treasure had vanished. And even
before that: Do you recall that I found that Fraeulein Sylvia von Erfft
had your complexion, your figure, your hair, and your hands? And even
before that: When you went walking with Benda in the woods, I walked
along behind, and took so much pleasure in watching you walk, but I
didn't know it. And when you came into the room there in the Long Row,
and caressed the mask and sat down at the piano and leaned your head
against the wood, don't you recall how indispensable you were to me, to
my soul? The only trouble is, I didn't know it; I didn't know it."

"Well, there is nothing to be done about all that: that is a by-gone
story," said Eleanore, holding her breath, while a blush of emotion
flitted across her face only to give way to a terrible paleness.

"Do you believe that I am a person to be content with what is past?
Every one, Eleanore, owes himself his share of happiness, and he can get
it if he simply makes up his mind to it. It is not until he has
neglected