and gentle in his nature comes unconsciously to the surface.  Henceforth he knows he loves, and because his love has been slow to develop itself it is not necessarily sluggish or deficient when once it is come.  But Englishmen are rarely heroic lovers except in their novels.  There is generally a little bypath of caution, a postern gate of mercantile foresight, by which they can slip quietly out at the right moment and forget all about the whole thing.

Claudius was not an Englishman, but a Scandinavian, and he differed from the imaginary young man described above in that he had a great broad reverence of woman and for woman’s love.  But it was all a theory, of which the practice to him was as yet unknown.  He had soon wearied of the class of women he had met in his student-life—­chiefly the daughters of respectable Heidelberg Philistines, of various degrees of south Teutonic prettiness; and the beautiful women of the world, of whom he had caught a glimpse in his travels had never seemed real enough to him to be in any way approached.  He never had realised that his own personality, combined with his faultless manners, would have soon made him a favourite in what is called society, had he chosen to court it.

After all, it was very vague this passing fancy for the dark-eyed woman of the Schloss.  Perhaps Dr. Claudius watched his symptoms too narrowly, and was overmuch pleased at finding that something could still rouse a youthful thrill in him, after the sensation of old age that had of late oppressed him.  A man, he said to himself, is not old so long as he can love—­and be loved—­well, so long as he can love, say, and let the rest take care of itself.  And by and by the sun went westering down the hill, and he shook himself out of his dreams, and pocketed his book and turned homeward.  His day, he thought, had not amounted to much after all, and he would spend the evening in sober study, and not dream any more until bedtime.  But he would be sociable this evening and eat his supper—­now he thought about it, it would be dinner and supper combined—­in the company of his colleagues at their favourite haunt.  And he would go to-morrow, he would certainly go to the Engadine.

But to-morrow came, and the Herr Doctor looked out of his window as usual, and he did not go to Pontresina or anywhere else, nor the next day, nor the day after.  Only up to the Schloss every day through the hot week, with his book and his pipe, and there he would lie and read and smoke, and say to himself, “To-morrow I will certainly go.”  There was something almost pathetic in Claudius, thus day after day revisiting the scene where he had experienced a momentary sensation of youth and vitality, where he had discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he was still alive and full of strength and sanguine hope, when he thought himself so old.  And lying among the ruins he called up the scene again and again, and the strange woman gradually got possession of his mind, as a cunning enchantress