Frau Laemke was speechless with astonishment, almost frightened, when she saw young Heir Schlieben step into her room about the time her Frida generally came home. She stammered with embarrassment: "No, Frida isn't at home yet--and Artur isn't either--and father is up in the lodge--but if you will put up with my company until--until--they come"--she pushed him a chair with a good deal of noise. He drew his chair close to the table at which she had been sewing. Now he was sitting where he used to sit. And he remembered his first invitation to the Laemkes' quite distinctly--it had been Frida's tenth birthday--he had sat there with the children, and the coffee and the cakes had tasted so excellent. And a host of other memories came back to him--nothing but pleasant memories--but still he and Frau Laemke did not seem able to start a proper conversation. Did he feel oppressed at the thought of meeting Frida again? Or what made him so restless there? Yes, that was it, he did not feel at home there now. There was something sad in his voice when he said to Frau Laemke as he held out his hand to her on leaving: "Well--good-bye." "Well, I hope you'll have a real good time--good bye for the present." He nodded in reply and shook her hand once more, and then he went. He preferred to go and meet Frida, that was better than sitting in that room. His heart was throbbing. Then he saw her coming towards him. Although it was dark and the street lamps not so good as in the town, he recognised her already far off. She was wearing the same sailor hat with the blue band she had had the summer before; it was certainly rather early in the year, but it suited her--so fresh and springlike. A feeling surged up in Wolfgang, as she stood before him, that he had never known in the presence of any woman: a brotherly feeling of great tenderness. He greeted her in silence, but she said in a glad voice: "Oh, is it you, Wolfgang?" and held out her hand to him. He strolled along beside her as he had done before; she had slackened her pace involuntarily. She did not know exactly on what footing they were with each other, but still she thought she could feel that he was no longer angry. "We are going away to-morrow," he said. "Well, I never! Where?" And he told her. She interrupted him in the middle. "Are you angry with me?" she asked in a low voice. He shook his head in the negative, but he did not say anything further about it. All she had intended saying to him, that she had not been able to do anything else, that Hans had found him out, that she had promised his mother and that she herself had been so extremely anxious about him, remained unsaid. It was not necessary. It was as if the past were dead and buried now, as if he had entirely forgotten it.