is flabby
cheek.

"No thanks to me, my child," said the Olympian; "to stand by you two is
of course my duty."

"What sort of a swollen stranger is that, anyhow?" thought Daniel to
himself. "What does he want of me? Why does he come into my house and
sit down at my table? Why is he so familiar with me? Why does he blow
his breath on me?" Daniel was silent.

"I understand, my dear son, that you would abandon your leisure hours
only with the greatest reluctance," continued Doederlein with concealed
sarcasm, "but after all, who can live precisely as he would like to
live? Who can follow his own inclinations entirely? The everyday feature
of human existence is powerful. Icarus must fall to the earth. With your
wife anticipating a happy event, you cannot, of course, hesitate in the
face of such an offer."

Daniel cast an angry look at Dorothea.

"I will think it over," said Daniel, got up, and left the room.

"It is unpleasant for him," complained Dorothea; "he values his leisure
above everything else in the world. But I will do all in my power to
bring him around, Father. And you keep at him. He will resist and
object. I know him."

Thus it was brought to light that Daniel was no longer a mysterious and
unfathomable individual in her estimation. She had found him out; she
had divined him, in her way to be sure. He was much simpler than she had
imagined, and at times she was really a bit angry at him for not
arousing her curiosity more than he did. What she had fancied as highly
interesting, thrilling, intoxicating, had proved to be quite simple and
ordinary. The charm was gone, never to return. Her sole diversion lay in
her attempts to get complete control over him through the skilful
manipulation of her senses and her priceless youth.

Daniel felt that she was disappointed; he had been afraid of this all
along. His anxiety increased with time, for it was evident that
everything he said or did disappointed her. His anxiety caused him to be
indulgent, where he had formerly been unbending. The difference in their
ages made him patient and tractable. He feared he could not show her the
love that she in her freshness and natural, unconsumed robustness
desired. On this account he denied himself many things which he formerly
could not have got along without, and put up with, many things that
would have been intolerable to him as a younger man.

It needed only a single hour at night to make him promise to accept the
pos