And everything in this room was beautiful. From the grand piano to the smallest footstool, all was perfect of its kind. Adela's admiration was loudly expressed, Alma's was silent. But whenever she lifted her eyes they were sure to encounter Nordstedt's glance seeking hers. "Do you love music?" he asked, suddenly stepping to her side. "Dearly!" she replied. He went to the piano, and played one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. Walter stood at a window, looking very grave. Nordstedt never played before strangers. What had come over him to-day? And how devoutly Adela was listening! Walter wished he had not come here to-day, and the brighter his friend's face grew the gloomier he felt. The song that Nordstedt had chosen was one of those brief melancholy strains that suggest a lament. When he had finished, Alma said, "That song is one of my favourites. It is so fervent, and yet so sad. It sounds as if one were thinking of some one loved and lost----" Nordstedt turned upon her one brief questioning glance of surprise. Alma blushed, fearing that she had said too much. But Adela, who generally said whatever came into her head without reflecting, exclaimed, as she looked admiringly at Nordstedt, "Why, you can do everything! You give me an entirely different idea of doctors from any I have ever had before!" Scarcely had the words left her lips when she, too, blushed crimson to the roots of her hair, for she remembered that Walter heard what she said. She was glad that Nordstedt proposed returning to Frau von Rosen, who ought now to be taken to her room. Without waiting for the escort of the two gentlemen, she took Alma's arm, and ran, rather than walked, along the corridor into the garden, while the young men silently followed them. Nordstedt's face was bright with a smile, but Walter was annoyed and discontented with himself, with Adela, with everybody. He was more startled than pleased when Adela offered him her hand at parting and said, softly, "It has given me great pleasure to see you again." He replied only by a low, formal bow. He wandered about the loneliest streets on this evening until ten o'clock, and at last closed his door behind him and threw himself upon his lounge, saying, "And yet I wish I had not seen her again!" CHAPTER XXI. SUMMER DAYS.