he was. Lootz, who had been sent by Herr Sonnenkamp to
inquire for the Count, carried the message back.

CHAPTER XIV.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD OF A DYING SEER.

Clodwig slept several hours, while Eric sat with the Banker, and drew
refreshment from his self-forgetting sympathy. The Banker failed in
many of the ordinary forms of society; but he possessed a nature full
of tact, and, in the midst of his deep emotion, Eric thought that only
unselfishness has genuine tact. Want of tact is at bottom selfishness;
for the man who is without it thinks and acts only for himself.

Eric now saw the Banker in a new light. In Carlsbad he had made rather
an effort to display his intelligence; but now his gentle and sensible
character showed itself naturally. Eric remembered the Banker's once
having said to him at Carlsbad, "The Jews are the children of
compassion: they understand how to bear and to relieve sorrow much
better than to create joy; the remembrance of past oppression gives
them sympathy with all suffering."

The Banker was ready to lend help at any moment, but allowed himself to
be put in the background again immediately.

Bella treated him with manifest neglect, but he took it good-humoredly,
showing without words that he was not offended. She acted like her
mother's own child; and moreover, he thought, she was not his friend.
Clodwig was his friend, and he regarded it as a duty to bear something
for his sake. He sat in the library, ready to answer any call, and
retiring again as soon as he believed himself in the way. Towards
midnight, Eric was suddenly summoned; Clodwig had waked, and asked for
him.

"Ah! I have slept so well," said Clodwig; "and it's strange, I
constantly dream now of my cousin Hatty, whom I am to marry. I like
her, and she likes me; but she has learned, and will learn nothing at
all, and she has such a shrill laugh, and says, 'Come, Clodwig, you're
so sad, come, marry me, we'll be merry.' And then I say, 'Child, I'm so
old already! see, I've no teeth left, and what will Bella say to it?'
'Ah, what' she says, 'nonsensical things! Come, we'll dance.' And then
we dance down to the chapel; and there stands the priest beckoning to
us, and we dance on, past the priest; and she's a splendid child with
beautiful eyes, and loves me dearly; and so we dance on and on, and I
can keep it up very well till I wake, without being tired."

"Is your cousin Ha