judgment!"

Then she hastily slipped the bolt back again, darted past Pyramus Kogel,
who did not know what had befallen him, without vouchsafing him a single
glance, and then, with haughty composure, descended the stairs.

The officer, incapable of uttering a word, gazed after her.

The feeling that attracted him to Barbara was something entirely new,
which since the last dance at the New Scales had robbed him of sleep by
night and rest by day. He had fallen under her spell, body and soul, and
he, whose business took him from city to city, from country to country,
had resolved, ere he accosted Barbara in the street, to give up the free,
gay life which he enjoyed with the eager zest of youth, and seek her hand
in marriage.

Her first rebuff had by no means discouraged him; nay, the handsome,
spoiled soldier was firmly convinced that her ungracious treatment was
not due to his proposal, but to its certainly ill-chosen place. A wife
of such rigid austerity would suit him, for he would often be compelled
to leave her a long time alone.

When he heard the day before that he would find her among Peter
Schlumperger's guests in Prufening, he had joined them, as if by
accident, toward evening, and Barbara had danced with him twice.

In the schwabeln she had trusted herself to his guidance even longer than
usual, and with what perfect time, with what passionate enjoyment she had
whirled around with him under the sway of the intense excitement which
had mastered her! He imagined that he felt her heart throb against his