There Felicitas sat amidst her adorers. Some of these considered that they had done their duty by taking in to supper raw young girls, whom they now entirely neglected to devote themselves to the fair mistress of Uhlenfelde. The poor damsels sat in awkward silence, casting despairing glances at their renegade cavaliers, whose jokes with Felicitas they could not follow or appreciate. The latter had defied the custom which would have apportioned her to a married man, and had come in to supper on the arm of young Zesslinger. But the young cuirassiers had both been sent to distant tables by their indignant mother. Frau von Sellenthin, looking regal in claret-coloured satin and lace, yet lovable as always, towards the end of supper, crossed the hall with dignified step and motioned Leo into a corner. "For mercy's sake," she murmured, "do you know what has come over Lizzie to-night? She is behaving scandalously with those stupid boys. Every one is talking about it." "Why do you ask _me_, mother?" "I thought perhaps you could----" "I can do nothing. Felicitas is mistress of her own actions. If she chooses to make herself ridiculous, it is her own look-out." And he led her back to her seat. After supper, Felicitas came up to him with sparkling eyes and cheeks flushed from champagne and merriment. "Gesegnete Mahlzeit, you growly-bear," she cried, putting her small soft hand into his, and shaking it with comical heartiness. Not by the quiver of an eyelash or the trembling of a lip did she betray that there was any secret between them. Every trace of what had been and was seemed erased from her memory. He replied to her, "Gesegnete Mahlzeit," stiffly. "_A propos_, Leo," she went on. "Are you in the humour for a spree?" "It depends on what the spree is." "Oh! you cautious old slow-coach. Listen, and I'll tell you; only you mustn't tell. We are getting up a midnight sleigh-drive." "We! Who?" "Why, these boys and two or three others. It's to be a sleigh-drive after the fashion of the King of Bavaria, you know--torches and outriders in mediæval costume, and all the rest of it. Unfortunately, there are no mountains to risk breaking our necks over. All the same, it will be a very _risqué_ affair, as I am to be the only lady of the party. So I thought if I found a steady, reliable person--a relation like yourself--to come and act as chaperon, it would be all right." "I am honoured by the confidence you place in me, my dear Lizzie," he replied, drawing himself erect. "But I am afraid that I am not nearly enough related to you to undertake the _rôle_ you suggest without injury to your reputation. On the other hand, I am sufficiently intimate with Ulrich to call to account those who, by taking part in such a mad excursion, would put you so wantonly in a false position."