She looked at him as she spoke with a frank, unconscious regret, openly expressed in her glance, and in the tone of her voice, before which he averted his eyes. It was at moments like these that he felt the ‘burnt fingers’ he had pictured to himself, give twinges and pangs of pain which were hard to bear without either word or exclamation. _Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre_, had been a favourite proverb with him, and he still believed in it a good deal, though he was aware, as most men and women who have passed the boundary of youth must be, either from observation or experience, that these trite, dull, hackneyed proverbs have a trick of realising themselves in a fashion the reverse of delightful. ‘Everything comes to pass for him who knows how to wait for it.’ But how does it come to pass? The oracle sayeth not, and he is a fool who asks. ‘And he shall give them their hearts’ desire’—another poetical, grandiloquently sounding promise. But how do they sometimes receive their hearts’ desire? Often in such fashion as to break the heart that has been waiting and desiring so long. ‘I am the bearer of an invitation to you from Fräulein Wilhelmi,’ he said, not answering her look and tone of regret. ‘Or rather, I might say, a mandate—a command.’ ‘What sort of a command? Luise wishes to command everyone,’ said Sara, with a languid smile. ‘She has arranged some private theatricals for to-morrow evening, and——’ ‘Does she wish me to take part in them?’ ‘No; only to be a guest.’ ‘And to see her and Max Helmuth in them. I shall have to ask you to make my excuses, Herr Falkenberg. Until Avice has gone, I shall not go out. She leaves at the end of this week, and I cannot leave her.’ ‘I think you have ample excuse, certainly; though of course I should wish, so far as I am concerned, to see you there.’ ‘Thank you. Luise’s parties have been a different thing since you did come. I often wonder she does not get utterly wearied of them—I don’t mean that I feel myself superior to such things, but the monotony of it all. Luise goes very little away from home, and while at home there is scarcely one night without some entertainment, either at her father’s house, or some one else’s. She sees the same people; hears the same jokes, the same stories; dances with the same partners; receives the same compliments. It must be unutterably wearisome.’ ‘Why so? In it she is fulfilling her vocation, just as much as you by studying art fulfil yours.’ ‘Does she? That never struck me. What do you call her vocation?’ ‘To please and attract is her vocation, to become an expert in which she has studied diligently and practised laboriously since she was a mere baby, and that under every kind of circumstances, and upon every variety of subject.’ ‘It is true. And she is very fascinating, without doubt.’ ‘She is.’ ‘Since she practises upon every variety of subject, I suppose she has practised upon you? Has she succeeded?’