"Of course Güntz is an old friend of yours. Do you know, I am much taken by his wife. She seems to me to be amiable, straightforward, sensible. We are neighbours; I should like Marie to see something of her. But they keep themselves to themselves rather, don't they?" "Oh, not altogether. Only Güntz finds ordinary shallow society uncongenial." "So do I, and so do you; eh, Reimers? But I see what you mean." Next day Lieutenant Güntz and Frau Kläre called at the colonel's, and regular intercourse soon established itself between the neighbours. Marie von Falkenhein was secretly enraptured with Kläre Güntz and her "sweet baby"; while Kläre took to her heart the fair young girl who had so early lost a mother's love. From this time the social status of the former governess was completely changed. Frau Lischke invited that "delightful" Frau Güntz to her select coffee parties. But Kläre excused herself on the plea that she was nursing her baby and could not be away from him for more than two hours together. Later in the year, when the evenings were warmer, and it was tempting to linger in the open air, the neighbours took to meeting together for supper in one garden or the other. The occupants of Waisenhaus Strasse No. 55 and those of No. 57 alternately provided the comestibles. Reimers was always free of the table. Once he triumphantly contributed a liver sausage with truffles; but he was ruthlessly snubbed by Kläre for bringing such a thing in the dog-days. The little clique was much censured by the regiment. Such familiar intercourse, it was thought, undermined the authority of the colonel. Nevertheless, people were eager for the goodwill of Frau Güntz. Thus it came about that Güntz had the satisfaction of seeing his wife one of the most popular ladies of the regiment, and was able to tease her with the new discovery that she was "exclusive, not to say stuck up and proud." In reality Kläre had only become intimate with two of the ladies. After Marie von Falkenhein she foregathered chiefly with Hannah von Gropphusen. The latter was a real puzzle to her new friends. She was always alternating in her moods from one extreme to the other. Sometimes she would not appear for weeks at a time; then she would come down day after day, each time seeming unable to tear herself away. Now she would be full of nervous, overwrought vivacity, and again would sit perfectly silent, staring gloomily before her. Güntz fled from her presence; he said she made him feel creepy. Once he whispered mysteriously in his wife's ear: "Do you know, I believe she and Gropphusen have committed a murder between them: and this terrible bond holds them together, although they fight like cat and dog." But Kläre strongly objected to such jokes. "How can you tell what that poor woman may have to bear? There may have been a murder in her history; but it was done by Gropphusen, and on her soul. Joke about something else, Fatty."