Jordan had a foreboding of something. He felt that he would have to take the girl in his arms and flee with her. Pictures of future misfortune crowded upon his imagination; the hope he had cherished for Gertrude was crushed to the earth. Benda stared at his plate in silence. Nevertheless, just as if he had other eyes than those with which he saw earthly things, he noticed that Eleanore’s hands and lips were trembling, that with each succeeding second she grew paler, that she cast a distrustful glance first at her father, then at her sister, and then at Daniel, and that she finally, as if overcome with a feeling of exhaustion, slipped away from her place by the table lamp, stole into a corner, and sat down on the hassock. But after they had all resumed their seats at the table, Gertrude sitting between Benda and her father, Eleanore came up and sat down next to Daniel. She never took her eyes off Gertrude; she looked at her in breathless surprise, Gertrude smiled as she had smiled when leaning against the door, timidly and passionately. From that moment on, the conversation lagged, Benda suggested to his friend that it was time for them to leave. They thanked Jordan for his hospitality and departed. Jordan accompanied them down the stairs and unlocked the front door. When he returned, Eleanore was just going to her room: “Well, Eleanore, are you not going to say good-night?” he called after her. She turned around, nodded conventionally, and closed the door. Gertrude was still sitting at the table. Jordan was walking up and down the room. Suddenly she sprang up, stepped in his way, forced him to stop, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him on the forehead. She had never done that before. She too had gone to sleep. Jordan felt terribly alone. He heard the street door open and close; he heard some one enter. It was Benno. Jordan thought that his son would come in, for he must have seen the light through the crack of the door. But Benno evidently had no desire to see his father. He went to his room at the other end of the hall, and closed the door behind him just as if he were a servant. “They are all three in bed,” thought Jordan to himself, “and what do I know about them?” He shook his head, removed the hanging lamp from its frame, and locked the room, holding the lamp very carefully as he did so. XIII Eleanore had not seen Eberhard von Auffenberg for a number of weeks. He wrote her a card, asking for the privilege of meeting her somewhere. The place in fact was always the same—the bridge at the gate to the Zoölogical Garden. Immediately after sunset she betook herself to that point. It was a warm March evening; there was not a breath of wind; the sky was covered with clouds. They strolled up the castle hill, and when they had reached the parapet, Eleanore said, gently laughing: “Now listen, I have talked enough; you say something.”