"Yes, and I must write up my diary for the _Argonaut_," said Mrs. Pottle, rising, and sailing away towards a table specially reserved for her beneath the awning. Herr Schwab looked glum on her departure; he took no part in the conversation of the others, and when Ethel by and by left the group and strolled away by herself, he too got up, refilled his big pipe, and walked to a spot where, leaning on the rail, he had Mrs. Pottle in full view. Puffing solemnly, he watched her for a long time as she wrote on and on in complete unconsciousness of his lingering gaze. At last, putting his pipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes, he went below. Soon he returned, laden with several bulky tomes, and staggered up to Mrs. Pottle’s sheltered corner, where he placed the volumes in a pile beside her table, and heaved a sonorous sigh. Mrs. Pottle looked up, glanced from Schwab’s face to the books, then resumed her writing, just as the German was bringing his right hand down on the crown of his wideawake. He wiped his gold-rimmed spectacles, replaced them on his nose, and sighed again. "Don’t you feel well, Mr. Schwab?" said the lady, preparing to pack up her papers. "Quite vell, madame, I zank you—egzept in vun sbot," he said. He had his hat off now, and as Mrs. Pottle looked curiously at him he made her a profound obeisance, and in a hurried, slightly anxious tone, said: "I beg leaf, dear madame, to bresent you zese few volumes _Brockhaus Encyglobaedia_—last edition, viz colour blates." "Really, Mr. Schwab, it is very good of you, but—no, I couldn’t think of it—I—" "Ach, it is nozink; it is nozink. Ze Gairman heart, madame, ven it is touched, do not zink of egsbense; it vibrate only viz sentiment. Besides, I buy zem halfprice." Mrs. Pottle had both hands on the table, and was gazing through her eye-glasses at Schwab in speechless amazement. "Allow me, dear Madame Bottle, to egsblain. You, no doubt, haf forgotten ze moment—vy should you regollect?—ven you ar-rive on zis ship: ze moment ven—vat shall I say?—ven you stickfast in ze too-narrow gangvay. Oh! madame, zat vas ze obbortunity of my life; I vas ready. You, Madame Bottle, vas Andromeda; I, Hildebrand Schwab, vas Berseus. Madame, I bush you zrough.... And at zat moment—I—fall—in—lov!" "Oh!" gasped Mrs. Pottle, half rising to escape. But she could not leave the corner she had so carefully chosen without passing Schwab; his bulky form concealed her from view; and feeling a prisoner she fell limply back into her chair. "Lov!" continued Schwab, as one declaiming an oration; "lov! vat is it? Madame, I seek it in _Brockhaus Encyglobaedia_, vol. eleven:—’Lov is a highly gomblex emotion azzoziated viz ze value vun put upon a berson or a objeck.’ Vat, I ask myself, is ze value I put upon zat beautiful objeck—I should say berson? Madame, I—I cannot gif estimate—I, Hildebrand Schwab, vat gif estimate by ze zousand. Ergo, I am in lov: _quod erat demonstrandum_."