He went home at once, he had no wish to loaf about out of doors any longer. And as he sauntered along with unsteady gait down out-of-the-way roads, something rose up before him in the dusk of the autumn evening and placed itself in his path--it was a question: "And you? Where are you going?" He entered his parents' house in a mood that was strangely soft and conciliatory. But when he stepped into the room, his parents were sitting there as though to pass sentence on him. Kate had not been able to keep it to herself after all, it had weighed on her mind, she had to tell somebody what she had seen. And it had irritated her husband more than his wife had expected. So the boy had got into such company! "Where have you been wandering about?" he said to his son angrily. The boy stopped short: why that voice? It was not so late. He raised his head with the feeling that they were treating him unjustly. "Don't look at me so impudently." His father lost control of himself. "Where is that woman you were wandering about with?" Wandering about--woman? The hot blood surged to the boy's head. Frida Laemke a woman--how mad. "She isn't a woman," he flared up. And then: "I haven't been wandering about." "Come, come, I've----" the man broke off quickly; he could not say: "I've seen you"--so he said: "We've seen you." Wolfgang got very red. Oh!--they had spied on him--no doubt to-day--had crept after him? He was not even safe from their prying looks so far away. He was furious. "How can you say 'that woman.' She isn't a woman." "Well--what is she then, may I ask?" "My friend." "Your friend?" His father gave a short angry laugh. "Friend--very well, but it's rather early for you to have such a friend. I forbid you to have friends of such doubtful, such more than doubtful character." "She isn't doubtful." Wolfgang's eyes sparkled. How right Frau Laemke was when she said the other day to him when he went to see them again: "Although I'm very pleased to see you, don't come too often, Wolfgang. Frida is only a poor girl, and such a one gets talked about at once." No, there was nothing doubtful about her. The son looked his father full in the face, pale with fury. "She's as respectable a girl as any. How can you speak of her like that? How d----" He faltered, he was in such a fury that his voice failed. "Dare--only say it straight out, dare." The man had more control over himself now, he had become quieter, for what he saw in his boy's face seemed to him to be honest indignation. No, he was not quite ruined yet, he had only been led astray, such women prefer to hang on to quite young people. And he said persuasively, meaning well: "Get away from the whole thing as quickly as possible. You'll save yourself much unpleasantness. I'll help you with it." "Thanks." The young fellow stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and stood there with an arrogant expression on his face.