"There you are right, madame," the Professor interrupted her, somewhat harshly. "The lad is fit for nothing serious or sensible, and may be a painter for all that I care." "Do you estimate Art so meanly? I should have thought it of equal rank with Science." Wehlau shrugged his shoulders with all the arrogance of the scholar who holds no calling equal in rank to his own, and by whom Art is regarded, more or less, as a plaything. "Yes, yes, pictures look very pretty in a drawing-room, I do not deny, and you have a whole gallery of them at Berkheim. This latest acquisition of yours will find a place among them." The Countess stared at him in surprise. "You do not seem to know the subject of the picture; it is destined for the church at Saint Michael." "For the church?" asked Wehlau, surprised in his turn. "Certainly, since it is a sacred picture." The Professor started to his feet. "What! _My_ son paint a sacred picture!" "Assuredly. Did he never tell you of it?" "He took good care not to do that. Nor did Michael even mention it to me, although he doubtless knew all about it." "He certainly did, for Captain Rodenberg stood to him for a model." "Ah! He must have made a charming saint!" the Professor laughed, bitterly. "Michael is well suited to the part. Have the fellows gone crazy? Excuse me, madame,--I am conscious of my discourtesy,--but it is beyond belief,--that is, I must find out about it." He bowed hastily, and rushed off so quickly that he very nearly ran against a young girl who was standing hidden in a window-recess, behind the Countess, and who looked after him half terrified. "Gerlinda, are you there?" asked the Countess, turning towards her. "My child, what is to be done if, whenever you go into society, you hide yourself behind the window-curtains! If you had only been beside me you would have been presented to one of the celebrities of the capital." The young girl advanced, and asked, timidly, "That angry old man who does not like sacred pictures----?" "Is one of the first scientists of the age, a magnate in science, in whom all eccentricity must be forgiven. He is, it is true, of a rather choleric temperament." Gerlinda still gazed after the Professor with some anxiety. No name had been mentioned in the conversation which she had overheard, and she asked no further question, for the beginning of the tableaux was announced, and all the guests betook themselves to the drawing-room, where the stage was set up. Hans Wehlau, on this evening, covered himself with glory. The pictures which he arranged, not after famous examples, but after his own ideas, in illustration of familiar legends and poems, did honour to his artistic capacity. Each was a creation in itself, and every time the curtain was raised there was a fresh surprise.