[Exit KAeMPE.]

Alone at last!

[Goes to centre door.]

There stands the Colonel, closely surrounded.  It is she!  She is here, and I have to lie in hiding like a fox under the leaves.—­But she has falcon eyes,—­perhaps—­the throng disperses—­she is walking through the hall arm-in-arm with Ida—­(Excitedly.) They are drawing nearer! (Irritably.) Oh, bother!  There is Korb rushing toward me!  And just now!

Enter KORB.

KORB.  Mr. Conrad!  I can’t believe my eyes!  You here, at this fete!

BOLZ (hastily).  Hush, old chap!  I’m not here without a reason.  I can trust you—­you’re one of us, you know.

KORB.  Body and soul.  Through all the talking and fiddling I’ve kept saying to myself, “Long live the Union!" Here she is!

[Shows him a paper in his pocket.]

BOLZ.  Good, Korb, you can do me a great favor.  In a corner of the refreshment room Bellmaus is sitting with a stranger.  He is to pump the stranger, but cannot stand much himself and is likely to say things he shouldn’t.  You’ll do the party a great service if you will hurry in and drink punch so as to keep Bellmaus up to the mark.  You have a strong head—­I know it from of old.

KORB (hastily).  I go!  You are as full of tricks as ever, I see.  You may rely on me.  The stranger shall succumb, and the Union shall triumph.

[Exit quickly.  The music ceases.]

BOLZ.  Poor Schmock! [At the door.]

Ah, they are still walking through the hall.  Ida is being spoken to, she stops, Adelaide goes on—­(Excitedly.) she’s coming, she’s coming alone!

ADELAIDE (makes a motion as though to pass the door, but suddenly enters.  BOLZ bows).  Conrad!  My dear doctor!

[Holds out her hand.  BOLZ bends low over it.]

ADELAIDE (in joyous emotion).  I knew you at once from a distance.  Let me see your faithful face.  Yes, it has changed but little—­a scar, browner, and a small line about the mouth.  I hope it is from laughing.

BOLZ.  If at this moment I feel like anything but laughing it is only a passing malignity of soul.  I see myself double, like a melancholy Highlander.  In your presence my long happy childhood passes bodily before my eyes.  All the joy and pain it brought me I feel as vividly again as though I were still the boy who went into the wood for you in search of wild adventures and caught robin-red-breasts.  And yet the fine creature I see before me is so different from my playmate that I realize I am only dreaming a beautiful dream.  Your eyes shine as kindly as ever, but—­(Bowing.) I have scarcely the right still to think of old dreams.

ADELAIDE.  Possibly I, too, am not so changed as you think; and changed though we both be, we have remained good friends, have we not?