to marry at all, either Anne
or any one else.

His brother laughed. "Then that's why the evening you came back you
didn't dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?"

"I would have danced with your wife," replied Apollonius. "You warned
me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me. Then
I didn't want to dance at all. You brought Anne up to me, and when you
went you asked her if I might see her home. I couldn't do anything
else under the circumstances. I have never thought of Anne in
connection with--"

"Marriage?" interrupted his brother laughing. "Well, she's pretty
enough to--amuse yourself with too, and it's worth the trouble to make
her perfectly mad about you.

"Fritz!" exclaimed Apollonius, displeased. "But you're not in
earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but
even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly about a respectable girl."

"Pshaw," said his brother, "if she behaves like that herself! What
does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?"

"She hasn't done that," answered Apollonius hotly. "She is a good
girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong."

"Yes, or you would have put her right," laughed Fritz, and there was
mockery in his voice.

"Did I know what she thought?" said Apollonius. "You've teased her
about me and me about her. I have done nothing that could have
awakened any such thoughts in her. I should have thought it a sin."

The men went back the way they had come. It did not occur to
Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood.
All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her
husband. It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was
false. He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had
hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to
hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her.
Everything had been a lie from the beginning. Her husband was
persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good.
Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the
persecuted. Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred
feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the
complete abandon of innocence. She did not know it. Oh, that she might
never learn to know it! As soon as she learnt to know it would
become a sin.--And already the steps were rustling through the gra