"Dear uncle," she said, "you would do me a great favor if you would consent to take me away from here--into the country, no matter where, if only away from this house. I have passed a night such as I hope I may never pass again, and didn't get a wink of sleep until this morning. You came home too late, and sleep too soundly, to have been disturbed long by the concert and the noise below us. But I--though I got away from the countess's just as early as possible--the music and the noise of the conversation reached my ears through the open windows. It will be just the same every night, for this lady is eternal unrest personified; and her circle expands into the infinite, since she not only patronizes music but all the other arts as well. So, if you love me, uncle, and don't want me to have a brain fever, see that we leave this house! Don't you too think, Herr von Schnetz, that nothing is left for me but rapid flight?" Schnetz looked at his friend, from whose jovial face all the sunshine had departed. But he took good care not to come to his aid. "My dearest child," the baron now ventured to remonstrate in a conciliatory voice, "the idea of rushing off in this wild fashion, after telling our friends only yesterday that it would be much nicer to take up our headquarters here in the town, and to make excursions from here to all points of the compass--" She did not let him finish his speech. "Feel how hot my hand is!" she said, pressing two little fingers against his forehead; "that is fever; and you know how people have warned us against the Munich climate. Didn't aunt tell us yesterday that even she intended to fly to the nearest mountains very soon? And besides, I should never think of asking you to shut yourself up with me in a mountain hut. I know very well, uncle, that you can't get on without the city for any length of time. I don't wish to go any further than the lake where we were yesterday; from there you can be back in Munich again in an hour, if you find you cannot stand it any longer. Don't you think this will be the most sensible thing for all parties, Herr von Schnetz?" "_Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!_" replied the lieutenant, bowing, with the most serious face in the world. It did not escape his keen eye that this young highness had been battling with some trouble of the heart during the night, and had not yet recovered her usual self-possession. While she was speaking, her eyes wandered about in an odd way, now toward the window, now toward the door, as if she trembled in fear of some surprise. She pleased him better, however, in this state of excitement than in her usual cool self-possession; he felt a curious sympathy for her beautiful youth, that had no friend and adviser to consult, except an old bachelor whose susceptibilities were none of the most delicate.