exclaimed: "Well I'm a son-of-a-gun if
there isn't Doederlein's daughter! How did you get here? Aha, you are
going about and showing the people what you can do! I should think you
and your creator would have had enough of music by this time."

The Baroness, recalling that the young girl was present, raised her
eyes and looked at Dorothea reproachfully. For the first time in her
life she felt that the resources she had managed to extract from a life
of neglect were about exhausted; for the first time in her life she felt
a shudder at the thought of her musical stupefactions.

She asked Herr Carovius to have patience, adding that he would hear from
her in a few days--as soon as she had talked the matter over with her
husband. She nipped in the bud a zealous reply he was about to make, and
nodded a momentary farewell to Dorothea, who put her violin in the case,
took the case in her hand, curtsied, and followed her uncle out of the
room.

She remained at his side; they went along the street together. Herr
Carovius turned to her from time to time, and made some rancorous
remark. She smiled modestly.

With that began the strange relation that existed between the two from
then on.

II

It had looked for some time as though the Baron von Auffenberg had
retired from the political stage. In circles in which he had formerly
been held in unqualified esteem he was now regarded as a fallen hero.

His friends traced the cause of his failure to the incessant friction
from which the party had suffered; to the widespread change that was
taking place in the public mind; to the ever-increasing pressure from
above and the never-ceasing fermentation from below; to the feverish
restlessness that had come over the body politic, changing its form, its
ideals, and its convictions; and to the more scrupulous and sometimes
reactionary stand that was being taken on all matters of national
culture.

But this could not explain the hard trace of repulsion and aversion
which the Baron's countenance had never before revealed when in the
presence of men; it threw no light, or at most an inadequate light, on
the stony glare, gloomy impatience, and reticence which he practised now
even in those circles and under those circumstances in which he had
formerly been noted for his diverting talents as a conversationalist and
companion.

In his heart of hearts he had, as a matter of fact, always despised his
politi