it, and reverently bowing his head, the manager of the pension carried it
to the Baron.

Myself, I felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five
guns.

At the end of the meal we were served with coffee. I noticed the Baron
took three lumps of sugar, putting two in his cup and wrapping up the third
in a corner of his pocket-handkerchief. He was always the first to enter
the dining-room and the last to leave; and in a vacant chair beside him he
placed a little black leather bag.

In the afternoon, leaning from my window, I saw him pass down the street,
walking tremulously and carrying the bag. Each time he passed a lamp-post
he shrank a little, as though expecting it to strike him, or maybe the
sense of plebeian contamination...

I wondered where he was going, and why he carried the bag. Never had I
seen him at the Casino or the Bath Establishment. He looked forlorn, his
feet slipped in his sandals. I found myself pitying the Baron.

That evening a party of us were gathered in the salon discussing the day's
"kur" with feverish animation. The Frau Oberregierungsrat sat by me
knitting a shawl for her youngest of nine daughters, who was in that very
interesting, frail condition..."But it is bound to be quite satisfactory,"
she said to me. "The dear married a banker--the desire of her life."

There must have been eight or ten of us gathered together, we who were
married exchanging confidences as to the underclothing and peculiar
characteristics of our husbands, the unmarried discussing the over-clothing