I could scarcely wait to meet her again at dinner. I fully expected that she would at last break her cold silence, and question me about what I had played, my musical studies and tastes. But nothing of the sort occurred. Nay, while all the others were praising and admiring me, and the Frenchwoman, with studied graciousness, kept her black eyes on my face, and laid a large piece of roast goose on my plate with her own hands, Fraeulein Luise looked at me so absently and indifferently that I could not help secretly brooding over this mystery. I was also annoyed because the baron, who had made no allusion to my sermon, delivered a long speech about my organ-music, from which I perceived that he had not taken the slightest interest in it, and was merely patching together, with a defective memory, certain phrases about the value of music to religious consciousness and the sin of considering the old church-hymns antiquated. But Uncle Joachim vouchsafed me for the first time a brief conversation in a low tone, which, however, I scarcely regarded as an honor. I thought him an insignificant, frivolous old nobleman; besides, he had not been to church at all. I longed to learn whether I owed the happy moment after my playing to self-delusion, or what was the reason I had again fallen into disfavor with the Canoness. So, soon after dinner, I went into the park and sauntered about within a short distance of the summer-house, holding in my hand a book, at which I gazed intently without reading a line. My friend Liborius had told me that Fraeulein Luise drank coffee every Sunday afternoon with her Uncle Joachim, who made it himself in his little pot, and ordered the cakes from the town at the next station. They always enjoyed it very much, and could often be heard talking and laughing loudly together. I had seen her go there that day, after giving a Sunday morsel to the sick peacock and stroking its back as it came up to her, screaming and fluttering. I did not understand how she could love the spiteful, disagreeable bird, any more than I could comprehend what attracted her to her godless uncle, with his sarcastic smile, whom I so greatly envied on account of her preference. I waited at my post an hour and a half in a very irritated mood, and was just in the act of turning away, and driving the arrogant enchantress out of my thoughts, when the door of the summer-house opened and she herself appeared, evidently in the gayest humor. But, as she caught sight of me, a shadow instantly flitted over her face, and only a faint smile of superiority lingered on her lips. "You are waiting for me, Herr Weissbrod," she said, carelessly, advancing directly to me. "You want a compliment for your church concert, do you not? Well, you played very finely."