with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on speaking, and after trying several times to catch his breath, he finally succeeded in saying:

"That asthma--the devil take it--like a halter around your neck--snap--your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling about our relations? Our relations, that is, your and my relations, there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow, the--the--noble man, I take it all back and call myself a vile cur. Only nobody must speak to me about him. I don't want to be reminded that he has a son and heir. To me he's dead, you see--he's dead, dead, dead."

He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Pütz his death-blow.

"Nevertheless, Baron----" I started to say.

"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my family--look at my womenfolk--completely smitten. Don't be ashamed, Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see anything, goosie?"

She did not blush nor did she seem to be abashed, but raised her folded hands slightly. It was such a touching, helpless gesture that it completely disarmed me. So I sat down again for a few moments and spoke about indifferent matters. Then I took leave as soon as I could without provoking him again.

"Go to the door with him, Iolanthe," said the old man, "and be charming to him. He's the richest man in the district."

At that we all laughed. But walking beside me in the twilight of the hall, Iolanthe said very softly, with a sort of timid grief:

"I know you don't want to come again."

"No, I don't," I said frankly, and was about to give my reasons, when she suddenly snatched up my hand, pressed it between her slim white palms, and said, half crying:

"Oh, come again! Please, please come again."

That's the way you're taken in. Old nincompoop that I was, I went daft on the instant.

In my excitement I chewed up the whole of my cigar on the ride home, forgetting to light it.

I made right for a mirror--lit all the lights, locked the door--back to the mirror. Examined myself front and back, and, with the help of my shaving mirror, my noble profile, too.

Result--crushing. A heavy bald pate, bull's neck, puffs under my eyes, double chin, my skin a fiery russet, like a glowing copper kettle.

And what was worse than all that--when I looked at myself in all my six feet of bulk, a chandelier went up. I knew why everybody immediately called me a "good fellow." Even in the regiment they used to call me a good fellow.

Once you are branded with a Cain's mark like that, the rest of your life turns into nothing but a series of events to prove the truth of it. People come to you with hard-luck stories, you're a butt for their jokes, they blarney you and borrow from you. If once you make a timid attempt to defend yourself, then they say, "Why I thought you were a good fellow!" So you can't get out of it. You are and you remain a good fellow. You've been stamped and sealed.

And then you, a good fellow, want to take up with women? With women, who languish for the Mephistophelean, who, to love properly, want to be deserted, duped, and generally maltreated.

"Hanckel, don't be an ass," I said to myself. "Go away from the mirror, put out the lights, knock those silly dreams out of your head, and get into bed."

Gentlemen, I had a bed--and still have it--a perfectly ordinary bed, as narrow as a coffin, of pine, stained red--no springs, no mattress--a deerskin instead. Twice a year it is filled with fresh straw. That was the extent of my luxury. Gentlemen, there are many stories about the poor camp cots of persons in high life. You see them on exhibition in castles and historical museums, and when the visitors are herded past them, they invariably clasp their hands and dutifully exclaim:

"What power of renunciation! What Spartan simplicity!"

Buncombe, gentlemen! You can't sleep more comfortably anywhere than on a bed like that--provided, of course, that you have a good day's work behind you, a good conscience within you, and no woman beside you--which all amount to about the same thing.

You stretch yourself deliciously until your feet just touch the bottom of the bed, you bite the comfortable a few times, burrow in the pillows, reach out for a good book lying on the table next to the bed, and groan from sheer bliss.

That's what I did that night after the tempter had left me, and as I slowly dozed off I thought:

"Well, well, no woman will make you traitor to your dear, hard, narrow bachelor's sack of straw, even if her name is Iolanthe, and even if she is the finest thoroughbred that ever galloped about on God's lovely pastures.

"Perhaps all the less so.

"Because--who knows?"

CHAPTER III

The next day I turned in my report to the boy--leaving out my asininities, of course.

He glowered at me with his dark eyes, and said:

"Let's say no more about it. I thought so."

But a week later he returned to the subject sort of by the way.

"You ought to go there again after all, uncle."

"Are you crazy, boy?" I said, though I felt as good as if a woman's soft warm hand were tickling the nape of my neck.

"You needn't mention me," he said, examining the tips of his boots, "but if you go there several times, perhaps things will gradually right themselves."

Gentlemen, you couldn't have broken a reed more easily than my resolution.

So I drove over again. And again and again.

I would let old Krakow go on with his vapourings, and I'd drink the coffee his wife made for me, and listen devoutly while Iolanthe sang her loveliest songs, even though music--in general--well, the oftener I visited Krakowitz the uncannier the business became, but something always tugged me back again. I couldn't help myself.

The old Adam in me, before going to sleep forever, wanted a Last Supper, even if it consisted of nothing but the pleasant sensation of a woman's nearness. In the depths of my soul I had no hopes of anything beyond that.

To be sure, Iolanthe continued to cast furtive glances at me, but what they indicated--whether a reproach, a cry for help, or merely the wish to be admired--I never could make out.

Then--on my third or fourth visit--the following happened.

It was early in the afternoon--blazing hot. From boredom or impatience I drove to Krakowitz.

"The Baron and Baroness are asleep," said the lackey, "but the young lady is on the verandah."

I began to suspect all sorts of things, and my heart started to thump. I wanted to go back home again, but when I saw her standing there, tall and snowy white in her mull dress, as if chiselled in marble, my old asininity came upon me again, stronger than ever.

"How nice of you to come, Baron," she said. "I've been frightfully bored. Let's go take a walk in the garden. There's a cool arbour where we can have a pleasant chat without being disturbed."

When she put her arm in mine, I began to tremble. I tell you, climbing a hill under fire was easier than going down those steps.

She said nothing--I said nothing. The