"Dear Alfred, we understand each other." "When I do happen to ride over to Uhlenfelde, it is to see Ulrich." "Especially when Ulrich is in the Reichstag?" The matrimonial recriminations ended abruptly, for at this moment a tall spare masculine figure, in a white dust-coat which hung without a fold, glided past the waiting-room window. It rather resembled a walking towel, on which some one had stuck a head. "Talk of the devil!" exclaimed Frau Malwine, and jumped up to see whither the passing form had betaken itself. "Who was it?" asked Herr von Stolt, who was sitting with his back to the window. "Ulrich von Kletzingk." The door of the vestibule opened, and he who had gone by came in. He had a pale sickly face of a reflective cast, with sharp small nose and hollow cheeks, set on narrow shoulders and a long freckled neck. It was framed in a light beard, which hung about it like a ragged fringe. The high, rather receding forehead was furrowed with three perpendicular lines denoting mental fatigue, and it ended in a shock of bristly dark-brown hair standing erect. The most remarkable feature of this intellectual head were the dark brilliant eyes, which shone forth from their blue sockets like torches of energy. After emitting luminous flashes, they seemed to slumber wearily again till a new excitement set them aflame once more. When he was aware who occupied the room, a shadow of nervous uneasiness descended for a moment on the new-corner's face, but passed quickly away. The tone in which he greeted the husband and wife was moderately friendly, if not cold. His voice was not pleasant to hear. It was shrill and high pitched, and however rapidly he spoke, the words seemed to be forced with pain and difficulty from his narrow chest. Frau Malwine beamed. She was no longer the mother of the Gracchi, in which part she had been just posing to her husband. She exhausted herself in expressions of affection for Frau Felicitas, and added the tender reproach that it was ages since she had seen anything of her. Twice when she had been expected, an extra supply of meringues had been baked, of the kind which was the pride of her modest ménage, but Frau Felicitas had not come. Ulrich Kletzingk allowed this outpouring of gush to pass over him quietly. Only the nervous playing with the buttons of his riding-glove betrayed that he was not quite at ease. "You put us to shame, madame," he answered. "Your friendship, however, has been too unobtrusive, for I think that it is some months since we saw you at Uhlenfelde." Frau Malwine, a little disconcerted at the reminder that she owed Uhlenfelde a call, nevertheless, in the same strain of affected _naïvété_, went so far as to explain that she was sure she had been well represented by her sons. Kletzingk bowed and smiled politely.