."

"Are you ill?" she asked, quite frightened.

"No."

"Well, what's the matter with you then?"

Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked so forbidding that she did
not question him any more, but only pressed his hand and assured him
she was amusing herself splendidly.

Gradually these invitations to the theatre, which had mostly ended
so pleasantly in a little intimate talk in some cafe or other, ceased.
Frida saw her friend very rarely at all now; he no longer fetched her
from business, and did not turn up at her home.

"Who knows?" said Frau Laemke, "perhaps he'll soon get engaged. He
has probably somebody in his mind's eye."

Frida pouted. She was put out that Wolfgang never came. What could
be the matter with him? She commenced to spy on him; but not only out
of curiosity.

And somebody else made inquiries about his doings too--that was his
mother. At least, she tried to find out what he was doing. But she only
discovered that he had once been seen in a small theatre with a pretty
person, a blonde, whose hair was done in a very conspicuous manner. Oh,
that was the one at Schildhorn. She still saw that fair hair gleam in
the dusk--that was the one who was doing all the mischief.

The mother made inquiries about her son's doings with a sagacity
that would have done credit to a policeman. Had her husband had any
idea of how often--at any time of the day or evening--his wife wandered
round the house where Wolfgang had his rooms, he would have opposed it
most strenuously. Her burning desire to hear from Wolfgang, to know
something about him, made Kate forget her own dignity. When she knew he
was absent she had gone up to his rooms more than once,
nominally to bring him this or that; but when she found herself alone
there--she knew how to get rid of his garrulous landlady--she would
rush about in both his rooms inspecting everything, would examine the
things on his writing-table, even turn over every bit of paper. She was
never conscious of what she was doing as long as she was there, but on
going down the stairs again she felt how she had humiliated herself;
she turned scarlet and felt demeaned in her own eyes, and promised
herself faithfully never, never to do it again. And still she did it
again. It was torture to her, and yet she could not leave it off.

It was a cold day in winter--already evening, not late according to
Berlin notions, but still time for closing the shops, and the theatres
and concert