Shyly, like a criminal, Paul slunk round the festive scene. A fear of strangers had always been his peculiarity, but never yet had his heart fluttered so anxiously as at this moment. “Is Elsbeth there?” Nowhere in all the crowd were there any traces of the inmates of the White House, but then his family also seemed to have disappeared without leaving any trace. Once he thought the cooing laughter of the twins caught his ear, but the next moment the noise had drowned it. Twice he had already made the round; then suddenly--his heart threatened to stop from surprise and rapture--he saw, quite close before him, his mother and father sitting in peaceful intercourse at the same table with the Douglas family. His father rested his elbows on the table, and, red with excitement, talked eagerly to Mr. Douglas. The broad-shouldered giant with the bushy gray beard listened to him silently, at times nodding and smiling to himself. The slender, delicate figure with the sunken cheeks and the blue rings round her eyes, who leaned wearily against the trunk of a tree and clasped his mother’s hand with her thin white fingers, that was his godmother, who had always seemed to him like an angel from the other world. But next to her--next to her, the lady in the modest gray dress, her fair hair simply combed back-- “Elsbeth! Elsbeth!” cried a voice within him; and then suddenly a wall of clouds sank down between him and her, and froze his innermost soul, and veiled his eyes with a damp mist. Opposite to her sat a gentleman with a saucy-looking fair mustache, and still more saucy blue eyes, who bent towards her familiarly, while a smile flitted over her quiet face. “She will marry that man,” he said to himself, with a conviction which seemed to be more than a jealous foreboding. With the clear-sightedness of love he had understood that these two natures harmonized and must seek each other. And perhaps they had already found one another while he himself wasted his days in idle dreams. He stood there as if stunned, and scrutinized the man who suddenly had rendered it clear to him what he had lost--lost, indeed, without ever having possessed it. How could he ever have dared to compare himself to this man that, to a hair, was the ideal man of whom he had always dreamed? Bold and energetic and triumphant (that’s what he had meant to be one day), exactly like the strange young man who looked at Elsbeth with his frivolous smile. He also wore patent-leather boots and a fashionable colored necktie, and his suit was made of the finest shining black cloth. Almost for an hour Paul stood there without daring to move from his position, devouring Elsbeth and her vis-à-vis with his eyes. The night came. He scarcely perceived it. Long rows of lanterns were lighted, and shed forth an uncertain light on the gay crowd.