“That sounds like a reproof which I shall have to bear,” he said derisively.  “Possibly I don’t view the affairs of life as you do.  I am accustomed to use other scales of measurement for nature, and for mortals as well.  ‘Live and work!’ The whole question hinges upon the definition of these words.  I have lived, years at a time, in Paris, that great central point of all civilization, where life ebbs and flows in a thousand streams.  He who has been wont to stem the tide in these great, almost overwhelming waters, can nevermore find a place in the little relations, in the narrow judgments and pedantries, in all this marasmus which the noble Germans call life.”

The insulting expression which he laid upon the last words, obtained for him his desire.  His companion suddenly stood still and measured him from head to foot, while a flash of anger shot from her cold blue eyes.  She seemed for the minute to have an angry answer at her tongue’s end, but she forced it back, and drawing herself up to her full height, said in a tone of contempt and disdain: 

“You forget, sir, that you are speaking to a German—­I now remind you of that fact.”

Hartmut colored to the roots of his hair at this merited reproof given to a stranger, a foreigner, as she supposed, who had forgotten himself.  What if this girl knew to whom she was talking, what if she ever learned —­a feeling of shame overcame him for the second, but he was a man of the world and controlled himself once more.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with a slight, half-mocking bow.  “I was under the impression that we were merely exchanging impersonal opinions.  I sincerely regret having annoyed you, Fraeulein.”

A scarcely perceptible movement of her head, and a slight shrug of the shoulders showed him that he had no power to really annoy her.

“I could certainly not think of influencing your judgments, but as our ideas are so radically opposed, I think it would be better to drop the conversation altogether.”

Rajanow showed no disposition to continue it.  Now he knew for a surety that the cold eyes could sparkle and blaze with anger, he had forced them to do it, but the thing had ended otherwise than he had expected.  He gave the slight figure at his side a half-inimical glance, and then his eyes lost themselves again in the dense green of the forest.

There was something captivating after all about this forest loneliness under the first light breath of autumn, a breath which touched the leaves tenderly and laid such delicate tints upon them, brightening the lovely landscape with its vivid reds and varied browns, with its glimpses here and there of bright gold where the sunlight pierced the woodland shade.  The branches of the tall trees, centuries old, swayed gently to and fro, and threw long, cool shadows across the occasional open spaces, where the wild forest flowers rested on the breast of the moss-covered earth.