"What? Are you mad?" Niebeldingk cried. "Why do you ask that?" Fritz was hurt. "May I not also send that symbol to a lady whose purity and loftiness of soul I reverence. I suppose I'm old enough!" "I see. You're quite right. Forgive me." Niebeldingk bit his lips and gave the lad the address. Fritz thanked him and went. Niebeldingk gave way to his mirth and called for his hat. He wanted to go to her at once. But--for better or worse--he changed his mind, for yonder in the gateway, unabashed, stood the knight of several honourable orders. Chapter VII To be sure, one can't stand eternally in a gateway. Finally the knight deserted his post and vanished into a sausage shop. The hour had come when even the most glowing passion of revenge fades gently into a passion for supper. Niebeldingk who had waited behind his curtain, half-amused, half-bored--for in the silent, distinguished street where everyone knew him a scandal was to be avoided at any cost--Niebeldingk hastened to make up for his neglect at once. The dark fell. Here and there the street-lamps flickered through the purple air of the summer dusk.... The maid who opened the door looked at him with cool astonishment as though he were half a stranger who had the audacity to pay a call at this intimate hour. "That means a scolding," he thought. But he was mistaken. Smiling quietly, Alice arose from the couch where she had been sitting by the light of a shaded lamp and stretched out her hand with all her old kindliness. The absence of the otherwise inevitable book was the only change that struck him. "We haven't seen each other for a long time," he said, making a wretched attempt at an explanation. "Is it so long?" she asked frankly. "Thank you for your gentle punishment." He kissed her hand. Then he chatted, more or less at random, of disagreeable business matters, of preparations for a journey, and so forth. "So you are going away?" she asked tensely. The word had escaped him, he scarcely knew how. Now that he had uttered it, however, he saw very clearly that nothing better remained for him to do than to carry the casual thought into action.... Here he passed a fruitless, enervating life, slothful, restless and humiliating; at home there awaited him light, useful work, dreamless sleep, and the tonic sense of being the master. All that, in other days, held him in Berlin, namely, this modest, clever, flexible woman had almost passed from his life. Steady neglect had done its work. If he went now, scarcely the smallest gap would be torn into the fabric of his life. Or did it only seem so? Was she more deeply rooted in his heart than he had ever confessed even to himself? They were both silent. She stood very near him and sought to read the answer to her question in his eyes. A kind of anxious joy appeared upon her slightly worn features. "I'm needed at home," he said at last. "It is high time for me. If you desire I'll look after your affairs too." "Mine? Where?"