The next day Ida walked on the same riverside path, but this time
not alone. Her natural modesty shrank from the possibility of a second
_tete-a-tete_ with her admirer, and she stooped from her solitary state
to ask Fraeulein Wolf to accompany her in her afternoon walk.

Fraeulein was delighted, honoured even, by the request. She was a
wishy-washy person, sentimental, vapourish, altogether feeble, and she
intensely admired Ida Palliser's vigorous young beauty.

The day was bright and sunny, the air deliciously mild, the river simply
divine. The two young women paced the path slowly, talking of German
poetry. The Fraeulein knew her Schiller by heart, having expounded him
daily for the last four years, and she fondly believed that after
Shakespeare Schiller was the greatest poet who had ever trodden this
globe.

'And if God had spared him for twenty more years, who knows if he would
not have been greater than Shakespeare? inquired the Fraeulein, blandly.

She talked of Schiller's idea of friendship, as represented by the
Marquis of Posa.

'Ah,' sighed Ida, 'I doubt if there is any such friendship as that out of
a book.'

'I could be like the marquis,' said the Fraeulein, smiling tenderly.' Oh,
Ida, you don't know what I would do for anyone I loved--for a dear and
valued friend, like you for instance, if you would only let me love you;
but you have always held me at arm's length.'