ce when he said to Frau Laemke as
he held out his hand to her on leaving: "Well--good-bye."

"Well, I hope you'll have a real good time--good bye for the
present."

He nodded in reply and shook her hand once more, and then he went.
He preferred to go and meet Frida, that was better than sitting in that
room. His heart was throbbing. Then he saw her coming towards him.

Although it was dark and the street lamps not so good as in the
town, he recognised her already far off. She was wearing the same
sailor hat with the blue band she had had the summer before; it was
certainly rather early in the year, but it suited her--so fresh and
springlike.

A feeling surged up in Wolfgang, as she stood before him, that he
had never known in the presence of any woman: a brotherly feeling of
great tenderness.

He greeted her in silence, but she said in a glad voice: "Oh, is it
you, Wolfgang?" and held out her hand to him.

He strolled along beside her as he had done before; she had
slackened her pace involuntarily. She did not know exactly on what
footing they were with each other, but still she thought she could feel
that he was no longer angry.

"We are going away to-morrow," he said.

"Well, I never! Where?"

And he told her.

She interrupted him in the middle. "Are you angry with me?" she
asked in a low voice.

He shook his head in the negative, but he did not say anything
further about it.

All she had intended saying to him, that she had not been able to do
anything else, that Hans had found him out, that she had promised his
mother and that she herself had been so extremely anxious about him,
remained unsaid. It was not necessary. It was as if the past were dead
and buried now, as if he had entirely forgotten it.

When he told the girl, who was listening with much interest, about
the Riviera where he was going, something like a new pleasure in life
seemed to creep into his heart again. Oh, all he wanted was to get away
from his present surroundings. When he got to the Riviera everything
would be better. He had not got an exact impression of what it would be
like there; he had only half listened, no, he had not listened at all
when his mother told him about the south, it had all been so
immaterial to him. Now he felt himself that it was a good thing to take
an interest in things again. He drew a deep breath.

"Are you going to send me a pretty picture post-card from there,
too?" she asked.

"Of course, many."