Nora nodded. She was reliving the moment when she had felt Wolff’s arm snatch her, as it had seemed, from the brink of death; she saw again his white, frightened face, and answered truthfully: "I have nothing to forgive. You did me no harm." "No; I know," he said, as though he had divined her thoughts. Nora caught a glance of his face in the long mirror opposite, and was struck for a moment by the bitterness of his expression. He looked less indifferent than usual—almost disturbed. "They say that if you give the devil a finger he takes the whole hand," he went on after a pause, and in a lighter tone. "Having obtained your forgiveness, I now come with a request, _gnädige Frau_." "May it be as easily granted!" Nora answered, laughing. "At any rate, it is not for myself this time. My sister-in-law, Frau Commerzienrat Bauer, has asked me to be a suppliant on her behalf. Perhaps you remember her? You met her at the Charity Bazaar last month." Nora shook her head. "I am a disgrace—I forget people’s names so quickly," she said apologetically. "My relation has a better memory—especially for those to whom she has taken a fancy. She has a special weakness for English people, and it seems she is most anxious to meet you again. She has, of course, quite another circle of acquaintances, and so is driven to the expedient of calling on you herself. Has she your permission?" Something in the request or in the manner of its making jarred on Nora. She hesitated, not knowing why, and Bauer went on quickly: "I know this form of proceeding is unusual, _gnädige Frau_, and I confess I should not have undertaken to be my sister-in-law’s messenger if it had not been that I had heard you were expecting your brother. The two things do not seem to have much connection, but it struck me that it might interest him—and perhaps you—to see something of another side of German life. There _is_ another side, _gnädige Frau_." "I am very content with the one I know," Nora answered. She was conscious of a rising repugnance—and a rising curiosity. Bauer laughed. "That is natural enough. You have married an officer, and have made his set yours. But for your brother it will be different. I know a little of English life and of English tastes, and I fancy he will find all this—this sort of thing cramped and dull, not to say shabby. These people"—his tone became faintly tinged with condescension—"belong to the class which prides itself on being poor but noble, and on despising those who have acquired riches. When they have not enough to eat, they feast on the memory of their ancestors and are satisfied. But there is another class, thank Heaven, one which has taken your people as an example, _gnädige Frau_. The great commercial and financial potentates, who have flung off the foolish, narrow-hearted prejudices of the past—it is of them and of their lives which you should see something before you pass judgment."