when
she walked, and never lost a chance to show her learning. As they were
coming home on the train, she said she felt she would like to ride in a
chaise, but there would have to be two horses and a coachman with a tile
hat. Benjamin Dorn replied that that was not an impossible wish,
suggesting at the same time in his best brand of juvenile roguishness
that there was a certain solemn ceremony that he would not think of
celebrating without having a vehicle such as she had described.
Philippina giggled, and said: "Oi, oi, you're all right." Whereupon
Benjamin Dorn, grinning with embarrassment, looked down.

Then they took leave of each other, for Agnes had fallen asleep in
Philippina's arms.

How Philippina actually felt about the attention he was showing her
would be extremely difficult to tell, though she acted as if she felt
honoured and flattered. Benjamin Dorn was by no means certain of
himself. Frau Hadebusch did all she could to bring Philippina around,
but every time she made a fresh onslaught Philippina put her off.

But Philippina had never sung as she had been singing recently, nor had
she ever been so light and nimble of foot. Every day she put on her
Sunday dress and trimmed it with her choicest ribbons. She washed her
hands with almond soap, and combed her hair before the mirror. Bangs had
gone out of fashion, so she built her hair up into a tower and looked
like a Chinese.

She visited Herr Carovius occasionally, and always found him alone, for
Dorothea Doederlein had been sent by her father to Munich to perfect
herself in her art. In broken words, with blinking eyes, from a grinning
mouth and out of a dumb soul, she told Herr Carovius all about her
affair with Benjamin Dorn, evidently believing that he was all fire and
flame to know how she was getting along and what she had _in petto_.
Herr Carovius had long since grown sick and tired of her, though he did
not show her the door. He had reached the point where he heaved a sigh
of relief when he heard a human voice, where he began to dread the
stillness that ruled supreme within his four walls. No one came to see
him, no one spoke to him, and he in turn no longer had the courage to
speak to any one. His arrogance of former days had died a difficult
death, and now he saw no way of making friends. If he went to the cafe,
there was no one there whom he knew. The brethren of the Vale of Tears
had been scattered to the four corners of the earth; a new gene