regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since.

She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children
had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had
more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment.
She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her
charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland
family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally
into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of
the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He
was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine
slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden
hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding
haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him
by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full
figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress
well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her
long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview
(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat
of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided
her heavy mass of hair that night.

Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a
soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in
matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly
charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his
life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in
the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the
people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to
Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised