"You will come, won't you, pretty Aunt, for my sake?"

Mechanically Bertha closed her eyes. A feeling of comfort stole over her,
as if some childish hand, as if the little fingers of her own Fritz, were
caressing her cheeks. Soon, however, she felt that some other memory as
well rose up in her mind. She could not help thinking of a walk in the
town park which she had taken one evening with Emil after her lesson at
the conservatoire. On that occasion he had sat down to rest beside her on
a seat, and had touched her cheeks with tender fingers. Was it only once
that that had happened? No--much oftener! Indeed, they had sat on that
seat ten or twenty times, and he had stroked her cheeks. How strange it
was that all these things should come back to her thoughts now!

She would certainly never have thought of those walks again had not
Richard by chance--but how long was she going to put up with his stroking
her cheek?

"Richard!" she exclaimed, opening her eyes.

She saw that he was smiling in such a way that she thought that he must
have divined what was passing through her mind. Of course, it was quite
impossible, because, as a matter of fact, scarcely anybody in the town
was aware that she was acquainted with Emil Lindbach, the great
violinist. If it came to that, was she really acquainted with him still?
It was indeed a very different person from Emil as he must now be that
she had in mind--a handsome youth whom she had loved in the days of her
early girlhood.

Thus her thoughts strayed further and further back into the past, and it
seemed altogether impossible for her to return to the present and