“The old woman is crazy, with her eternal dancing; but let us keep her in perpetual motion to-night, just to teach her a lesson, until she herself gives in!” While the ballroom was being cleared of chairs and got ready for the hop, couples were promenading in the garden. The golden sickle of the moon shed dim rays over the landscape and made the towers and steeples of the town, standing out at some distance, appear like misty silhouettes. In the deep green of the bushes a nightingale pealed forth his liquid plaint into the balmy night air, while from the ballroom inside the tuning of violins mingled inharmoniously. From the town gusts of warm wind carried snatches of a martial song, ground out on the barrel-organ of a carrousel. All these noises rose in a confused mass into the still air, mingling with the laughter of the women and the calls of the servants and musicians. Meanwhile Borgert gave a _gratis_ performance to a number of his younger comrades. He had gathered them around him in the tennis courts, where he strikingly imitated Frau Stark in the rôle of a tennis player. He showed how she attempted to meet the balls with a racquet, and how she picked them up, until these young men were fairly dying with hilarity. He was too funny, they said, and played his improvised part really to perfection. At last, however, Borgert tired of this “manly” sport, and his audience dropped off, one by one, joining the dancers inside. Borgert, though, enjoying the mild night air, lit a fresh cigar and strolled about the garden, his habitual cat-like tread barely audible on the soft ground. Puffing the fragrant weed, he suddenly spied, in the uncertain glimmer of the moon, the sheen of a white summer robe. “Oho! A little intrigue,” he thought to himself. “Maybe something of interest. Let’s reconnoitre!” He glided like a shadow among the flowering lilacs, heavy with perfume, and when a few paces from the figure in white, crouched and hid himself behind one of the bushes. He could not distinguish the outlines of the two figures clearly, but he heard whispering. First, in low tones, he made out the voice of Frau Kahle, cooing like a turtle, and next it was the _basso profundo_ of Lieutenant Pommer, vainly endeavoring to compress its volume into a murmur. “Amazing! Has this coarse elephant turned into a Romeo, sighing like a furnace?” he said to himself, and listened with all his might. The syllables and now and then the broken words that he was able to understand from his point of vantage seemed to afford him the greatest delight. When the couple at last rose and disappeared down the path leading to the side entrance of the Casino, he left his hiding-place and slowly followed in their footsteps. An unholy smile played around his thin lips. “Two more in my power!” he whispered.