on. She
herself had said that she would turn him down if he should dare to ask
her for a dance. And Apollonius' appearance showed that she made it
impossible for him to enjoy his stay in his father's house. Vexation
made Anne honest, too, and she expressed her thoughts as far as she
could without touching on the delicate point of her own feeling for
Apollonius. Christiane was now obliged to hear the same reproach from
a stranger's mouth that she had already heard from her own child.

The girl went. Apollonius, on his way back from his brother, passed by
again. He was still in time to see Anne leaving. But nothing showed in
his face to confirm Christiane's only half understood fear.

The child had said: "You have done something to him." Anne had said:
"You hate him, you won't let him enjoy himself." And the sad glance
that he sent after her--she herself caught him now and then
unnoticed--said the same thing. Like a flash of joyous light it came
into her mind that he did not look sadly after Anne--nor joyfully
either. His gaze was as indifferent as it was with every one else. She
had been told: "You hate him, you have offended him and you want to
hurt him." And she had believed that he hated her, that he wanted to
hurt her. And had he not done so? She looks back into the time long
past when he insulted her. It is long now since she had felt angry
with him for it; she had only feared a fresh insult. Could she still
be angry, when he had become such a different man, when she herself
knew that he would not offend her, when people said, and his own sad
glance confirmed it, that she offended him? And she let her thoughts
run back eagerly, so eagerly that the music sounded again about her
and she sat again among her girl friends, in her white dress with the
pink sash, in the shooting-house, on the bench in front of the
windows; and she got up again, driven by a vague impulse and,
dreaming, made her way among the dancers to the door--there she saw
outside, was it not the same face that looked after her now when she
passed, so honest, so gentle in its sadness? Was it not the same
peculiar sympathy now as then, that followed her every step and never
left her? Then, she had avoided him and looked at him no more, for he
was false. False? Is he false again? Is he still false?

* * * * *

All day long Fritz Nettenmair thought of what it could be that
Apollonius wanted to say to him tomorrow: "Tomorro