Daniel evaded the questions; he was out of sorts. And yet in the bottom of his heart the contact with the girl made a pleasing impression on him; it was in truth almost a saving impression. For his thoughts continually and obstinately returned to the girl who had fled, and whose presence he missed without exactly wishing that she were at the table with the others. Benda spoke of the political changes that might, he feared, take place because of the death of Gambetta. Jordan, who always took a warm interest in the affairs of the Fatherland, made a number of true and humane remarks about the tense feeling then existing between France and Germany, whereupon the door to Gertrude’s room opened and Gertrude herself stood on the threshold. Deep silence filled the room; they all looked at her. Strangely enough, she was not wearing the dress she had on at the concert. She had put on the Nile green dress, the one in which Daniel saw her for the first time. Jordan and Eleanore hardly noticed the change; they were too much absorbed in the expression on the girl’s face. Daniel was also astonished; he could not look away. Her expression had become softer, freer, brighter. The unrest in which her face had heretofore been clouded had disappeared. Even the outlines of her face seemed to have changed: the arch of her eyebrows was higher, the oval of her cheeks more delicate. She leaned against the door; she even leaned her head against the door. Her left hand, hanging at her side, seemed indolent, limp, indifferent. Her right hand was pressed against her bosom. Standing in this position, she studied the faces of those who were sitting at the table, while a timid and gentle smile played about her lips. Jordan’s first suspicion was that she had lost her mind. He sprang up, and hastened over to her. But she gave him her hand, and offered no resistance at all to being led over to the table. Suddenly she fixed her silent gaze on Daniel. He got up involuntarily, and seized the back of his chair. His colour changed; he distorted the corners of his mouth; he was nervous. But when Gertrude withdrew her hand from her father’s and extended it to him, and when he took it and his eye met hers—he could not help but look at her—his solicitude vanished. For what he read in her eyes was an unreserved and irrevocable capitulation of her whole self, and Daniel was the victor. His face grew gentle, grateful, dreamy, and resplendent. It was not merely the sensuous charm revealed in the feeling which Gertrude betrayed that moved him: it was the fact that she came as she had come, a penitent and a convert. The sublime conviction that he had been able to transform a soul and awaken it to new life touched him deeply. This it was that drew him to Gertrude more than her countenance, her expression, and her body combined. And now he saw all three—her countenance, her expression, and her body.