the corner of the house, the door being behind.

'He is good-looking, isn't he?' I said to Charlotte.

'I dislike that type of healthy, successful, self-satisfied young
animal.'

'That's because you have eaten so many cakes and sardines,' I said
soothingly.

'Are you never serious?'

'But invariably.'

'Frankly, I find nothing more tiring than talking to a person who is
persistently playful.'

'That's only those three vanilla ices,' I assured her encouragingly.

'You here, too, Frau Nieberlein?' exclaimed Ambrose, coming in. 'Oh
good. You will come with us, won't you? It's a beautiful walk--shade the
whole way. And I have just got that work of the Professor's about the
Phrygians, and want to talk about it frightfully badly. I've been
reading it all night. It's the most marvellous book. No wonder it
revolutionised European thought. Absolutely epoch-making.' He bought his
biscuits as one in a dream, so greatly did he glow with rapture.

'Come on Charlotte,' I said; 'a walk will do us both good. I'll send
word to August to meet us at Stubbenkammer.'

But Charlotte would not come on. She would sit there quietly, she said;
bathe perhaps, later, and then drive to Stubbenkammer.

'I tell you what, Frau Nieberlein,' cried Ambrose from the counter, 'I
never envied a woman before, but I must say I envy you. What a
marvellously glorious fate to be the wife of such an extraordinary
thinker!'

'Very well then,' I said quickly, not knowing what Charlotte's reply
might be, 'you'll come on with August and meet us there. _Auf
Wiedersehen_, Lottchen.' And I hurried Ambrose and his biscuits out.

Looking up as we passed beneath the window, we saw Charlotte still
sitting at the marble table gazing into space.

'Your cousin is wonderful about the Professor,' said Ambrose as we
crossed a scorching bit of chalky promenade to the trees where Mrs.
Harvey-Browne was waiting.

'In what way wonderful?' I asked uneasily, for I had no wish to discuss
the Nieberlein conjugalities with him.

'Oh, so self-controlled, so quiet, so modest; never trots him out, never
puts on airs because she's his wife--oh, quite wonderful.'

'Ah, yes. About those Phrygians----'

And so I got his thoughts away from Charlotte, and by the time we had
found his mother I knew far more about Phrygians than I should have
thought possible.

The walk along the coast from Sassnitz to Stubbenkammer is alone worth a
journey to Ruegen. I suppose there are few