there any more.

What does this mean? He laughed aloud when he was informed that the
villa, with all its appurtenances, had been sold the day before to the
American consul at the capital. He is outwitted; these people are his
neighbors no longer, and there can nothing be said about demanding back
the property bought at a merely nominal sum. And after the first flush
of anger, Sonnenkamp experienced a peculiar satisfaction in the thought
that there were so many sagacious people in the world; it is a pleasant
thing that there are so many foxes and lynxes to be found everywhere,
and under their own particular masks.

A court-lackey rode up. Sonnenkamp reined in. Could it be possible that
they repented and were sending a courier after him?

"Where are you going?" he asked of the court-lackey as he stopped.

"To Villa Eden."

"To whom?"

"To the Professorin Dournay."

"Might I ask who sends you, and what your errand is?"

"Why not?"

"Well, what's the errand?"

"The Professorin was formerly a lady in waiting on the gracious mother
of the Prince, and the gracious Princess was very fond of her."

"Very well, very well. And now?"

"Well, now, the Professorin is living there with a horrible man who has
deceived the whole world, and is a slave-trader, and one's life isn't
safe there a single minute, and now the gracious Princess sends me
there, and I am to say to the Professorin--and if she will, to take her
along with me at once--that she can be delivered from this monster."

The lackey was astonished to see the man who had questioned him ride
away without speaking another word.

Sonnenkamp boiled with rage; but he shortly laughed out loud again.

"That's all right! afraid,--the whole world is afraid of him. This
confers strength; this is far better than the silly honor, with which
one must behave himself."

He felt a profound contempt for those in high station. Now they take up
the neglected widow, now,--why not before?

He rode to the castle. Here were the laborers who were erecting a wing
of the building; they saluted their employer with evident reluctance.
Sonnenkamp smiled; at any rate, they had to salute him. He would have
liked to get the whole world together, in order to look it, once for
all, defiantly in the face.

He rode to the Major's. Fraeulein Milch was standing at the window, and
before he said anything, she called down:--

"The Herr Major is not at home." And now he turned homeward.

Wh