"I missed your visit day before yesterday, and have not been able to return it yet because I have been in service again. An old acquaintance has fallen upon me from the skies, a Baron N----" (he gave the name of Irene's uncle). "I got acquainted with this jolly crony some years ago in Algiers, when, just to get a smell of powder, I was fool enough to take the field against _Messieurs les Arabes_, although they had never done me the slightest harm in the world. The baron was trying at the time to become a lion-hunter; but he afterward preferred to offer his homage to the king of the desert from a respectful distance, and to travel back to his peaceful home with a skin bought at a bazaar, and a good store of burnooses and shawls. He was the sensible man of the two. For my part, it was a long time before I could get rid of the ugly remembrance that I had really done my hunting in earnest, and had probably deprived several of those poor devils of the pleasure of protecting their native soil against the French invaders. And now my old tent-fellow comes upon me here like a ghost--though a very portly and jolly one--and drags me about with him for days; in fact, I am coming from his hotel at this very moment." Felix involuntarily gave a glance toward the windows of the hotel. It cost him a hard struggle to suppress all signs of his emotion. "Does your guest live here?" he asked. "You have been visiting him so early?" "We were going to take a ride. But I found a note from him, in which he informed me that I might take a holiday. His party has been invited by one of its noble relatives to take an excursion of several days, at which I, thank Heaven, should be quite superfluous." "His party? Then the baron is--" "Married? No; but almost worse than that. He has a young niece with him who is really the cause of his having come here at all. A bad story--a broken engagement, great surmising and gossiping about it in the little capital--in short, the health of the Fräulein demanded a change of air, and she insisted upon going off to Italy for a year. My old comrade, who remained a bachelor because he feared the claws of a lioness less than the slipper of a pretty wife--well, he simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. This young niece of his rules him with her little finger. The consequence was that the trunks immediately had to be packed for Italy. But, while here, their noble relatives succeeded in frightening them so about the Italian summers and the cholera, that they have decided to wait until the worst of the season is over, spending part of the time here in the city and part in the mountains. You will perceive, my dear friend, what a charming prospect this is for me." "Is the young Fräulein so unamiable that your 'service' is such a hard task?" Felix remarked, with an attempt at lightness. At the same time he looked abstractedly away from the lieutenant, as if he merely continued the topic from politeness.