especial friends became famous among the children throughout the
East Side; even grown people noted the grace and originality of a
particular group of girls, led by a black-haired, slim-legged one
who danced with all there was of her. And how their mothers did
whip them when they returned from a day of this forbidden joy!
But they were off again the next Saturday--who would not pass a
bad five minutes for the sake of hours on hours of delight?

And Hilda was gone from his life, was sailing away on his
ship--was it not his ship? was not its cargo his hopes and dreams
and plans?--was sailing away with another man at the helm! And
he could do nothing--must sit dumb upon the shore.

At half-past twelve he closed the shop and, after the midday
dinner with his mother, went down to Brauner's. Hilda was in the
room back of the shop, alone, and so agitated with her own
affairs that she forgot to be cold and contemptuous to Otto. He
bowed to her, then stood staring at the framed picture of Die
Wacht am Rhein as if he had never before seen the wonderful lady
in red and gold seated under a tree and gazing out over the
river--all the verses were underneath. When he could stare at it
no longer he turned to the other wall where hung the target
bearing the marks of Paul Brauner's best shots in the prize
contest he had won. But he saw neither the lady watching the
Rhine nor the target with its bullet holes all in the bull's-eye
ring, and its pendent festoon of medals. He was longing to pour
out his love for her, to say to her the thousand things he could
say to the image of her in his mind when she was not near. But
he could only stand, an awkward figure, at which she would have
smiled if she had seen it at all.