Excitedly the countess walked up and down. “He knows it, the wretch! He has always known it, the rogue! And such dissembling as he has practised! Such hypocrisy! The wretched rogue, I’ll bring it home to him! I’ll seek him out!” She turned to her sister. “Forgive me, Elsie, for letting my temperament run away with me. You are right. His name awakened an anger of some years’ standing. My blood boils, I confess. He may have been a man of honour and a gentleman in his youth. He must have been, or you would never have consented to such an adventure. But I hesitate to say what he is to-day. He is still perfectly discreet; you need have no anxiety on that score. But I assert that even discretion has its limits. Where these are passed, decent people shake their heads, and virtue looks like mere baseness. _Voilà._” “All that you say is quite dark to me,” Frau von Febronius replied wearily, “and I really haven’t any desire to fathom it. I wanted to tell you this oppressive secret. Keep it to yourself. Never reveal it, except to prevent some misfortune, or to render Letitia a service. I don’t quite see how either purpose will ever be served by a revelation. But it consoles me that one other human being, beside myself and that man, knows the truth.” The countess gazed thoughtfully at her sister. “Your life wasn’t exactly a gay one, was it, Elsie?” The sick woman answered: “No, hardly gay.” During the following days she rallied a little. Then came a relapse that left no room for hope. In the middle of March she died. By this time the countess was already far away. Her goings and comings were as purposeless as ever. But she nursed a favourite vision now. Some day she would meet Crammon, confront him with her knowledge, avenge herself upon him, challenge him and annihilate him, in a word, enjoy a rich triumph. At times when she was alone, or even in the presence of Miss Stöhr, whom it astonished, she would suddenly wrinkle her childlike forehead, clench her little fists, and her shiny face would turn red as a lobster, and her violet-blue eyes blaze as for battle. II It was three o’clock in the morning when Felix Imhof left a party in the Leopoldstrasse, where there had been gaming for high stakes. He had won several thousand marks, and the gold coins clinked in the overcoat pocket into which he had carelessly stuffed them. He had had a good deal to drink, too. His head was a bit heavy. At his first steps into the fresh air he reeled a little. Nevertheless he was in no mood to go home. So he wandered into a coffee-house that was frequented by artists. He thought he might still find a few people with whom he could chat and argue. The day he had passed was not yet full enough of life for him. He wanted it brimming. In the room, which was blue with smoke, there were only two men, the painter Weikhardt, who had recently returned from Paris, and another painter, who looked rather ragged and stared dejectedly at the table.