Reimers asked himself where his eyes had been that all this should hitherto have passed him unnoticed. He thought he had never seen anything so exquisite. But Hannah Gropphusen would scold him when he stood gazing thus in naïve admiration. "Herr Reimers," she would cry, "how inattentive you are. You must really look after the balls better!" But when she noted the direction of his admiring glances, a delicate flush would overspread her face and mount to her white brow, on which a single premature furrow was curiously noticeable. "You see, Herr Reimers," she said, one evening in May, "we are the last again." The sun had just set. A light mist rising from the river was faintly coloured by the last red rays. Frau von Gropphusen rested her foot on a garden chair and refastened the strap of her shoe. Reimers stood watching, with his racquet in his hand. The stooping posture, though unusual, was so graceful, that he said simply and with conviction, but without the least passion or sentimentality in his voice: "Dear lady, how wonderfully beautiful you are!" Hannah von Gropphusen bent closer over her shoe-lace. She wanted to say something in reply just as simple as his own words had been; but she could find nothing except the banal rejoinder: "Please do not flatter me, Herr Reimers!" and her voice rang a little sharply. They walked silently side by side towards the town, by the footpath across the meadows, and then along a little bit of the high-road until they came to the first houses. Reimers was under a spell. He could not speak. He listened to the light rapid footfall that accompanied his longer stride to the rhythm of her silk-lined skirt as she walked; and as the evening breeze from the river wafted a faint perfume towards him, he thought of the lovely slender arm he had seen through the transparent material of her sleeve. This perfume must come from that fair soft skin. He felt a sudden longing to kiss the beautiful arms. Frau von Gropphusen avoided looking at her companion. Once only she stole a glance at him with a shy, questioning, dubious expression. It chanced that Reimers was looking at her. Their eyes met, and parted reluctantly. At the garden gate he kissed her hand in farewell. She started a little and said with an assumption of gaiety, "Heavens! what can have come to us? On a warm spring evening like this our hands are as cold as ice!" Reimers hastened homewards, much perturbed in spirit. He was due at the Güntzes' to supper at half-past eight. It had already struck the hour, and he had yet to dress; for the colonel, who would probably be there too, objected to see his officers in mufti, except when shooting or some great sporting occasion was the excuse.