Scarcely was Leo alone than he took up the picture which he had leaned against the wall, replaced it upon the easel, stepped backwards from it, and regarded it sadly. "So you send me out into the world!" he murmured. "It is your revenge upon me for my cowardly words of you in your absence; for it was cowardly so to do violence to myself. Your punishment is hard, but just. Now that I dare once more to gaze into the depths of those dark, girlish eyes, why are they not scornful and angry, but sad and dreamy?" He stood for a while so lost in thoughts of the few moments he had spent in Eva's presence, and in contemplation of the picture, that he did not hear the door behind him open. An aged officer, leaning heavily upon a stout bamboo cane, entered the room, and, standing still, gloomily surveyed the young man lost in revery before the picture; then as he glanced at a mirror hanging on the wall opposite the door, he saw reflected in its depths his own image and his son's. He was startled; the astonishing likeness between them, which he had never before admitted, struck him forcibly and painfully at the moment. "So like, and yet so different!" the old man thought, "Yes, he is my son. I could not disown him if I would. My only son,--so like me,--and that he should disgrace our name,--'tis maddening!" He stood for a moment silently watching his son, and then struck the floor violently with his bamboo cane. "Halloo, Herr Leo von Heydeck!" he cried. "Colonel von Heydeck requests the honour of a few words with you!" Leo turned in surprise. "What, father, you here?" he asked. One glance at his father's gloomy face told him plainly enough that the old man was perfectly aware of the events of the last few hours, and had come to call his son to account. Confused and annoyed, Leo bent his looks upon the ground. "You did not expect a visit from me?" the colonel asked, contemptuously. "You had indeed no right to do so, for old Colonel von Heydeck has never had anything to do with scoundrels!" "Father!" "Why, don't you like the word? I should not have thought you would notice it! I have just seen the Herwarths, uncle and nephew, and I know everything. 'Tis the second time a Heydeck has tamely borne such an insult,--first my vagabond of a brother, and now you, my only son!"