"And the latter is meanwhile my case," said Bertram to himself, as he played his part with due zeal, and, as he thought, with great success. It was a natural consequence, of that part that he lectured Hildegard (after the event), because she had not yesterday taken him at once into her confidence; that he exchanged with his friend Otto looks of the completest accord and understanding; that he used with Lydia--to her evident delight--a tone of mingled melancholy and fun, which appeared half to express and half to hide a deeper emotion; and that with the Baron he completely dropped his calm manner of the day preceding. How else could he form an opinion of the man? And how could he be a faithful counsellor to Erna without having formed an opinion? So he examined the Baron's portfolio with patient attention, whilst that nobleman turned over the leaves and gave explanations. The collection would have been a priceless treasure if the quality had corresponded with the quantity. There were sketches from almost every country in Europe; the northern coast of Africa, too--Algiers, Tunis--was largely represented. And then the painter's talent embraced all styles and kinds of painting:--landscape, architecture, still-life, portraiture--nothing had escaped the unwearied brush, nothing had appeared too difficult. On the contrary, there were the most unlikely effects of light and shade, the oddest scenes, the most _risqué_ situations, involving the wildest inroads on the laws of perspective and the most reckless foreshortening--and the daring sketcher seemed positively to have revelled in these. And yet Bertram had to confess to himself that a not inconsiderable talent, which, with patient and careful schooling, might have borne beautiful fruit, had been recklessly wasted--and, indeed, generally recklessness did seem to him to be the Baron's leading characteristic. Anyhow, the painter's fluent comments on his own sketches quite corresponded to the reckless style of painting. Everywhere his ideas, good ones and bad ones, and some really original ones, were clothed in the same hurried, flurried, sometimes absurd form, showing a ready, but never a profound insight into human relations, into manners and customs of nations; much, but most desultory reading; extensive, and yet scattered knowledge. The man spoke as he painted, and painted as he played music. Reckless, superficial, inconstant, like his work and his talk, will and must his love be too, thought Bertram.