They returned to their box. Stephen smiled with a smile as glittering as a torero’s, and put a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Letitia looked at him sidewise, and wondered whether he really had a dagger in his possession. That night, when they drove home, he almost smothered her with his caresses. She repulsed him gently, and begged: “Show me the dagger, Stephen. Give it to me! I want so much to see it.” “What dagger, silly child?” he asked, in astonishment. “The dagger you were going to plunge into my heart.” “Let that be,” he answered, in hollow tones. “This is no time to speak of daggers and death.” But Letitia was stubborn. She insisted that she wanted to see it. He took his hands from her, and fell into sombre silence. The incident taught Letitia that she could play with him. She no longer feared that sombre stillness of his, nor his great skull on his powerful neck, nor the thin mouth, nor the paling face, nor the great strength of his extraordinary small hands. She knew that she could play with him. Great fire-flies flew through the air, and settled in the grass about them. When the carriage stopped at the villa, Letitia looked around with a cry of delight. Sparks seemed to be falling in a golden rain. The gleaming insects whirred about the windows, the roof, the flowery creepers on the walls. They penetrated into the hall. Letitia stopped at the dark foot of the stairs, looked at the phosphorescent glimmer, and asked fearfully and with an almost imperceptible self-mockery in her deep voice: “Tell me, Stephen, couldn’t they set the house on fire?” The Negro Scipio, who appeared with a lamp at the door, heard her words and grinned. VI Around Twelfth Night Randolph von Stettner with several friends came to Christian’s Rest. The young men had called up Christian by telephone, and he had been alone so long that he was glad to receive them and be their host. He was always glad to see Randolph. The latter brought with him two comrades, a Baron Forbach and a Captain von Griesingen, and also another friend, a young university teacher, who was fulfilling his required military service at Bonn and was therefore also in uniform. Christian had met him before at a celebration of the Borussia fraternity. A delicious meal was served, followed by excellent cigars and liqueurs. “It is consoling to see that you still don’t despise the comforts of the flesh,” Randolph von Stettner said to Christian. Captain von Griesingen sighed: “How should one despise them? They torment us and they flit temptingly about us! Think of all that is desirable in the world--women, horses, wine, power, fame, money, love! There is a dealer of jewels in Frankfort, named David Markuse, who has a diamond that is said to be worth half a million. I have no desire for that special object. But the world is full of things that are possessed and give delight.” “It is the diamond known as Ignifer,” Dr. Leonrod remarked, “a sort of adventurer among precious stones.”