utiful city and its good
people. I grumbled sadly when my little highness insisted upon
traveling, and taking up her residence further south. Now, nothing
could afford me greater pleasure than her whim to settle down here in
Munich, of all places, and if she only would decide not to go away from
here again at all--"

The entrance of Irene interrupted him. She looked paler than on the day
before, and greeted the gentlemen with heavy eyes and a languid
movement of her little head, which generally sat so spiritedly and so
erect upon her shoulders.

"Dear uncle," she said, "you would do me a great favor if you would
consent to take me away from here--into the country, no matter where,
if only away from this house. I have passed a night such as I hope I
may never pass again, and didn't get a wink of sleep until this
morning. You came home too late, and sleep too soundly, to have been
disturbed long by the concert and the noise below us. But I--though I
got away from the countess's just as early as possible--the music and
the noise of the conversation reached my ears through the open windows.
It will be just the same every night, for this lady is eternal unrest
personified; and her circle expands into the infinite, since she not
only patronizes music but all the other arts as well. So, if you love
me, uncle, and don't want me to have a brain fever, see that we leave
this house! Don't you too think, Herr von Schnetz, that nothing is left
for me but rapid flight?"

Schnetz looked at his friend, from whose jovial face all the sunshine
had departed. But he took good care not to come to his aid.

"My dearest child," the baron now ventured to remonstrate in a
conciliatory voice, "the idea of rushing off in this wild fashion,
after telling our friends only yesterday that it would be much nicer to
take up our headquarters here in the town, and to make excursions from
here to all points of the compass--"

She did not let him finish his speech.

"Feel how hot my hand is!" she said, pressing two little fingers
against his forehead; "that is fever; and you know how people have
warned us against the Munich climate. Didn't aunt tell us yesterday
that even she intended to fly to the nearest mountains very soon? And
besides, I should never think of asking you to shut yourself up with me
in a mountain hut. I know very well, uncle, that you can't get on
without the city for any length of time. I don't wish to go any further
than the la