d foster son, that
enraptured charm she so much liked to conjure up before her imagination,
is a question that had better remain unanswered.

When Eberhard became aware of the condition in which Daniel then found
himself, his feelings of chivalry were moved. With the dauntless courage
of which he was capable, he subdued the apathy he had cherished toward
Daniel ever since he first came to know him, and to which actual
detestation and disquieting jealousy had been added a few weeks ago.
"You have been out in the rain," said Eberhard courteously, but with a
reserve that was rigid if not quite forbidding or impenetrable.

"I look like it, don't I?" said Daniel with a scowl.

"You will catch cold if you are not careful. May I offer you my top
coat?" continued Eberhard more courteously. He felt as if he could see
the figure of Eleanore rising up behind Daniel, that she was quite
surrounded by flowers, and that she was smiling at him in joy and
gratitude. He bit his lips and blushed.

Daniel shook his head: "I am accustomed to all kinds of weather. Thank
you."

"Well, then, at least wrap this around your neck; the water is running
down your back." Thereupon Eberhard reached him a white silk kerchief he
drew from the pocket of his coat. Daniel make a wry face, but took the
kerchief, threw it about his neck, and tied it in a knot under his chin.

"You are right," he admitted, and drew his head down between his
shoulders: "It all reminds me of a good warm bed."

Eberhard stared at the locomotive of the in-coming train. "Plebeian," he
thought, with inner contempt.

Nevertheless he joined this same plebeian in the third-class carriage,
though he had bought a ticket for first class. Was it the white silk
kerchief that so suddenly attracted him to the plebeian? What else could
it have been? For during the entire journey they sat opposite each other
in absolute silence. It was a remarkable pair: the one in a shabby, wet
suit with a hat that looked partly as though it belonged to a cheap sign
painter, and partly as though it were the sole head gear of a gypsy
bard, and with a big pair of spectacles from which the eyes flashed
green and unsteady; the other looking as though he had just stepped out
of a bandbox, not a particle of dust on his clothing, in patent
leather slippers, English straw hat, and with an American cigarette in
his mouth.

Next to them sat a peasant woman with a chicken basket on her lap, a
red-headed girl