"Greatly obliged, I'm sure; but really, Eichhof, I cannot see why I should not like to unpack and arrange these pretty little things, or why my books, which you so despise, should hinder me from winning some of them in the cotillon." "I know how well you dance, and ride too, and that is just why I cannot understand how you can read so much. When did you learn that habit?" "I learned it when my income would not allow of my passing much time outside of my four walls." Lothar was silent, and Werner went on very composedly: "At the time of the universal money-panic, after those years when gold seemed to be lying about by millions in the streets, and when many a man, in stooping to pick up what he fancied he saw, lost his own hard thalers out of his pocket, I suddenly found my modest income reduced by one-half. All the choice I had was either to make it suffice or to leave the service, and as I was a soldier, and nothing but a soldier to the very marrow of my bones, I got through." "Couldn't you give me a receipt for the process?" asked Lothar. Werner laughed. "The receipt is simple enough: 'Determine to do what you must.'" "And then it was that you began to read?" said Thea. "Oh, I had tried somewhat before to fill up the gaps in a cadet's education, but then it was that I began to read in earnest, for my books had to indemnify me for so much else. Now that I have no longer that reason for study, my taste leads me in the same direction. Did you look through the book I sent you the other day, Countess?" Here they were again launched upon one of those confounded literary topics that made Lothar feel his presence so superfluous. He gave a vicious dig to the pin by which he was fastening a knot of ribbon to the cushion, and then went and worked away among the flower-pots, wishing fervently that Herr von Rosen would come and interrupt this bookish talk, and altogether getting himself into a desperately bad humour. When at last the carriage from Schönthal drove up, he hurried out to meet the guests. Thea observed for the first time this afternoon that Lothar was certainly attentive to Alma; he devoted himself to her exclusively, and no wonder, she looked so bright and pretty that it was but natural that Lothar should be fascinated. Thea brought out Walter's last letter, from which she wished to read a few extracts to her father. As she opened it, two photographs fell out of the envelope and made the round of the table about which they were sitting over a cup of afternoon tea. One was a late picture of Walter; the other, which he asked to have returned to him, was Dr. Nordstedt. "A fine, earnest face," said Werner, looking at the latter. Lothar glanced at it over his friend's shoulder. "By Jove, that is a beard!" he exclaimed. "Look, Alma: how do you like that?" He handed her the picture. She looked at it with a smile. "He has fine eyes," she said, "but otherwise the picture does not please me. I detest those huge beards."