Tita stares, and then demurely smiles; but it is with an assumed severity that she rebukes him for such a wicked proposal, and reminds him that he must start early next morning.  He groans assent.  Then she takes her leave.

The big young man was silent for a moment or two, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out.  I begin to think I am in for it—­the old story of blighted hopes and angry denunciation and hypocritical joy, and all the rest of it.  But suddenly Charlie looks up with a businesslike air and says: 

“Who is that doctor fellow you were speaking about!  Shall we see him to-morrow?”

“You saw him to-night.  It was he who passed us on the road with the two beagles.”

“What! that little fellow with the bandy legs and the spectacles?” he cries, with a great laugh.

“That little fellow,” I observe to him, “is a person of some importance, I can tell you.  He—­”

“I suppose his sister married a Geheimer-Ober-under—­what the dickens is it?” says this disrespectful young man.

“Dr. Krumm has got the Iron Cross.”

“That won’t make his legs any the straighter.”

“He was at Weissenburg.”

“I suppose he got that cast in the eye there.”

“He can play the zither in a way that would astonish you.  He has got a little money.  Franziska and he would be able to live very comfortably together.”

“Franziska and that fellow?” says Charlie; and then he rises with a sulky air, and proposes we should take our candles with us.

But he is not sulky very long; for Ziska, hearing our footsteps, comes to the passage and bids us a friendly good-night.

“Good-night, Miss Fahler!” he says, in rather a shamefaced way; “and I am so awfully sorry we have kept you up so late.  We sha’n’t do it again.”

You would have thought by his manner that it was two o’clock, whereas it was only half-past eleven!

III—­DR. KRUMM

There was no particular reason why Dr. Krumm should marry Franziska Fahler, except that he was the most important young man in Huferschingen, and she was the most important young woman.  People therefore thought they would make a good match, although Franziska certainly had the most to give in the way of good looks.  Dr. Krumm was a short, bandy-legged, sturdy young man, with long, fair hair, a tanned complexion, light-blue eyes not quite looking the same way, spectacles, and a general air of industrious common sense about him, if one may use such a phrase.  There was certainly little of the lover in his manner toward Ziska, and as little in hers toward him.  They were very good friends, though, and he called her Ziska, while she gave him his nickname of Fidelio, his real name being Fidele.