“Very true.  But when you found this letter of yours on your place at breakfast, did you seem for a moment to see Madame Blumenthal sitting opposite?”

“Opposite?”

“Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the neighbourhood.  In a word, does she interest you?”

“Very much!” he cried, joyously.

“Amen!” I answered, jumping up with a laugh.  “And now, if we are to see the world in a month, there is no time to lose.  Let us begin with the Hardtwald.”

Pickering rose, and we strolled away into the forest, talking of lighter things.  At last we reached the edge of the wood, sat down on a fallen log, and looked out across an interval of meadow at the long wooded waves of the Taunus.  What my friend was thinking of I can’t say; I was meditating on his queer biography, and letting my wonderment wander away to Smyrna.  Suddenly I remembered that he possessed a portrait of the young girl who was waiting for him there in a white-walled garden.  I asked him if he had it with him.  He said nothing, but gravely took out his pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph.  It represented, as the poet says, a simple maiden in her flower—­a slight young girl, with a certain childish roundness of contour.  There was no ease in her posture; she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-waisted white dress; her arms hung at her sides and her hands were clasped in front; her head was bent downward a little, and her dark eyes fixed.  But her awkwardness was as pretty as that of some angular seraph in a mediaeval carving, and in her timid gaze there seemed to lurk the questioning gleam of childhood.  “What is this for?” her charming eyes appeared to ask; “why have I been dressed up for this ceremony in a white frock and amber beads?”

“Gracious powers!” I said to myself; “what an enchanting thing is innocence!”

“That portrait was taken a year and a half ago,” said Pickering, as if with an effort to be perfectly just.  “By this time, I suppose, she looks a little wiser.”

“Not much, I hope,” I said, as I gave it back.  “She is very sweet!”

“Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet—­no doubt!” And he put the thing away without looking at it.

We were silent for some moments.  At last, abruptly—­“My dear fellow,” I said, “I should take some satisfaction in seeing you immediately leave Homburg.”

“Immediately?”

“To-day—­as soon as you can get ready.”

He looked at me, surprised, and little by little he blushed.  “There is something I have not told you,” he said; “something that your saying that Madame Blumenthal has no reputation to lose has made me half afraid to tell you.”

“I think I can guess it.  Madame Blumenthal has asked you to come and play her game for her again.”

“Not at all!” cried Pickering, with a smile of triumph.  “She says that she means to play no more for the present.  She has asked me to come and take tea with her this evening.”