Herr Carovius loved to complain. He ran around the table, exclaiming that he was ruined. He brought out his cheque book, added up the figures, and cried: “Two more years of this business, dear Baron, and I will be ready for the poor house.” He demanded security and still more securities; he asked for renewed promises. He submitted an account of the total sum, and demanded an endorsement. But it was impossible for any one to make head or tail out of this welter of interest, commissions, indemnities, and usury. Herr Carovius himself no longer knew precisely how matters stood; for a consortium of subsequent indorsers had been formed behind his back, and they were exploiting his zeal on behalf of the young Baron for all it was worth. “What is this I hear about you and the women?” asked Herr Carovius one day. “What about a little adventure?” He had noticed that the Baron had a secret; and it enraged him to think that he could not get at the bottom of this amorous mystery. He made this discovery one day as Eberhard was packing his trunk. “Where are you going, my dear friend?” he crowed in exclamatory dismay. Eberhard replied that he was going to Switzerland. “To Switzerland? What are you going to do there? I am not going to let you go,” said Herr Carovius. Eberhard gave him one cold stare. Herr Carovius tried beseeching, begging, pleading. It was in vain; Eberhard left for Switzerland. He wanted to be alone; he became tired of being alone, and returned; he went off again; he came back again, and had the conversation with Eleanore that robbed him of his last hope. Then he went to Munich, and took up with the spiritists. Spiritual and mental ennui left him without a vestige of the power of resistance. An inborn tendency to scepticism did not prevent him from yielding to an influence which originally was farther removed from the inclinations of his soul than the vulgar bustle of everyday life. Benumbed as his critical judgment now was, he went prospecting for the fountain of life in a zone where dreams flourish and superficial enchantment predominates. Herr Carovius hired a spy who never allowed Eberhard to get out of his sight. He reported regularly to his employer on the movements of the unique scion of the Auffenberg line. If Eberhard needed money, he was forced to go to Carovius, who would stand on the platform for an hour waiting for the Baron’s train to come in; and once Eberhard had got out of his carriage, Herr Carovius excited the laughter of the railroad officials by his affectionate care for his protégé. Delighted to see him again, he would talk the sheerest nonsense, and trip around about his young friend in groundless glee. It seemed after all this that Herr Carovius really loved the Baron; and he did.