"Don't leave it in your trunk or grip," cautioned the elder. "Keep it on your person. Sew it on your shirt, by golly. One never needs a passport, you know, and then you need it like the devil. I've heard of two or three persons this month who got separated from their passports and were in trouble. Something seems to be really going on under the surface. But spring is the classic time for war as well as love to break out." Gard decided to follow Anderson's advice and keep the parchment in his innermost pocket. He also checked his trunk through to the frontier, contrary to Rudi's suggestion. He said nothing of these changes, yet he was far from thinking that the hand of the Goth would dare to reach out after him--a friendly foreigner and guest leaving this peaceful hearthstone, so effusive in its amicable leave-takings. Just before his departure he felt something of a restraint in the household. He attributed it to the social stiffness of the German. This increases when intercourse comes to a point. Affecting moments jolt hard in him--moments when embarrassment is natural to all humans. At the gate, for the last time, the Herr was energetically smoking his long pipe. The Frau frequently wiped her sweating face with a handkerchief. The boys kept kicking away the dogs whose barking half drowned the parting words. Gard said good-by, too, to the old linden by his window. How one can miss a tree! And Elsa! He flattered himself she looked a mite regretful that he was going. She was starting for her class when she joined the topsy-turvy group by the gate and waved her creamy hand. Her small straw hat, wreathed fatiguingly in roses, clung desperately to her head in the awkward way German women have of wearing headgear, and made her, despite her blossom-like attractiveness, seem quaint and so truly German like the rest. She looked to Gard as pink and blonde as the year before when he had first been dazzled by her glistening hair. On crossing the river he could see her moving down their meadow path where Heine had sung to him, her etching materials under her arm. One last look at the row of knightly castles rimming the heights above her and at the storied Elbe at her feet as she hurried along! He gulped down a small something in his throat, and turned his face toward the station. After all, Dresden had been a year of his life. CHAPTER XXXVIII A JOURNEY At Eisenach, bound for Frankfort, the train guard punched Kirtley's ticket and showed him into a compartment that was empty save for a military figure engaged in reading a large newspaper, holding it firmly with gloved hands before his face. Although the day was warm, an army cap was clapped down low on the head.