excuse. And merely to gain time he said
laughingly:

"Of course! Ask her freely and cheerfully. Whoever asks is told. But
how do you come to think of that just now? Just now?" A thought that
flashed overwhelmingly into his mind involuntarily expressed itself in
this question. Apollonius was already at the door. He turned back to
his brother, and answered with a gladness that seemed fiendish to the
latter because he did not look into the other's honest face. If he
had, Apollonius would have caught something of the devilish fear that
disfigured his brother's countenance. And still, perhaps he would not.
He might have thought his brother ill, so entirely was he without the
slightest suspicion of anything in his proposal that could inspire his
brother with fear. In fact he thought that what pleased him must
please his brother also.

"Before," replied Apollonius, "I was obliged to fear that I should
make her still more angry. And that would have been even more
disagreeable for you than for me."

His brother laughed and nodded in his jovial way with his head and
shoulders merely for the sake of doing something. And his: "And now?"
sounded as if it were half stifled with laughter, not with anything
else.

"Your wife has been different for some time," went on Apollonius
confidingly.

"She is"--answered Fritz Nettenmair's start against his will and
wanted to say what he considered her to be. It was an evil word. But
would he himself who had made her that tell him so? No, it has not yet
come to pass, what he fears. And even if it is bound to come; he can
still delay it. He forces himself not to give utterance to his
excitement. He would like to ask: "And how do you know that she--is
different?" But he knows that his voice would tremble and betray him.
He must know who has told his brother. Has he already spoken to her?
Has he read it in her eyes at a distance? Or is there a third person
involved--an enemy whom he already hates before he knows whether he
exists?

Apollonius seems to have caught something of his brother's unfortunate
gift of reading another's thoughts. His brother does not ask; his face
is turned away; he is seeking like a desperate man and cannot find;
and yet Apollonius answers him. "Your little Annie told me," he said,
and laughed as he thought of the child. "'Uncle,' said the odd little
thing, 'mother is not so cross with you any more; go to her and say
you won't do it any more; then she'll be kind ag