"No, my lady," he cried, "you must tell me the proposition you had in mind. Although it is only a short time since I had the good fortune to make your acquaintance, I can nevertheless assure you that your appearance, each of your words, has made a deep and lasting impression on me. It is, to be plain, as if a complete change were going on in me, and these hours with you--" He reddened and became silent. She noticed it, and came to his aid, although she was apparently looking beyond him. "My proposition," she said, "will not by any means suffice to make an entirely different man of you, but only to release the true one from his narrow shell. I am now going to Würzburg to visit a sick friend. After staying with her for two days, I shall return on this same road, making no halt before Genoa, where I shall take passage on a steamer bound for Palermo; for as yet I have not seen Sicily. "Now, what Goethe has written in his 'Italian Journey' about his companion, the artist Kniep, whom he engaged to sketch any wayside scene which pleased his fancy, has always filled me with envy. I am no great poet, and no rich princess. Yet I am not so poor but that I too may grant myself such a travelling companion. Of course we now have photography. But to you at least I need not explain how much better it is to have an artistic hand at disposal than any photographic apparatus whatever. I also thought it would be well for you to be introduced into this paradise by some one who understands the language perfectly and is no novice in the art of travelling. You would be entirely free to remain with me as long or short a time as you pleased. The first sentence of our compact should read: Freedom even to inconsiderateness. And if, on the return, you should wish to linger at Rome or Florence, the means for doing so--" "Oh, my lady," he broke in, excitedly, "I would not think of trespassing on your kindness and generosity under any condition. I can well afford to spend a year in the south, and if I perceive in your proposal a sign from heaven, it is only because your suggestion, the prospect of seeing all these world wonders in your company, makes the determination so much easier. For that I shall be unceasingly grateful to you. It is indeed just as you say; my wife, my dear children--in fact, I shall offend them less than I now imagine. Christel is so intelligent, so self-reliant, she herself, when I explain it to her--or better, if you could say it to her as you have to me--truly, after Würzburg you must--I cannot expect you to take a trip to Rothenburg--whoever has seen the Colosseum and the baths of Caracalla must regard our modest, commonplace, medieval--" The whistle of the locomotive interrupted him. The train was moving more slowly, and lights were beginning to glimmer by the roadside.