The conversation was much more lively than usual. The baroness could make a very agreeable hostess when she chose, and was by no means so entirely free from vanity that she should have remained inactive when she feared to be neglected for the sake of Melitta. Melitta herself was in her most amiable humor; she jested and laughed, she teased and was teased, unconcerned and innocent, like a mere child. Oswald did not dream, while abandoning himself willingly to the charm of Melitta's attractions, that his presence contributed largely to the greater cheerfulness. And yet this was exactly the case. There are few women who are perfectly indifferent to the impression which they produce on the company in which they are, and Melitta was certainly not one of those few. Her disposition was rather to be easily excited, and to be bribed by pleasing forms and clever words, in a manner which is utterly unintelligible to colder natures. Oswald was perhaps not exactly what the world calls a handsome man; but yet nature had not neglected him, and the good society in which he had always moved had added to the innate gracefulness of his manners. All this surprised Melitta the more agreeably, as she had not expected it in a man of such humble pretensions. Oswald appeared to her every moment of greater importance; she began to fear that her brusque invitation had been out of place, and yet she was charmed with the idea of seeing the young man at her own house. She felt flattered when she met more than once, Oswald's admiring glance across the table; and yet she always cast down her long silky eyelashes, searching and eloquent as her eyes generally were. After dinner the baroness proposed a game of graces, as Melitta declared that she could remain a little longer. Bruno ran off to bring the hoops, which were neither out of place nor out of repair,--a fact which spoke volumes for the scrupulous order that reigned at the château. Soon the company was standing about on the lawn in a wide circle, and the graces flew around merrily through the soft, warm evening air. All, even the baron, showed more or less skill in the game, except Malte, who could never catch the hoop when it did not fall straight upon his stick. Melitta, on the other hand, never failed to avail herself of his missing, for the purpose of sending her hoop, with lightning speed, out of the regular order, at the head of some one of the other players, and Oswald noticed that he was more frequently distinguished in this way than any of the others.