of
her. But they keep themselves to themselves rather, don't they?"

"Oh, not altogether. Only Guentz finds ordinary shallow society
uncongenial."

"So do I, and so do you; eh, Reimers? But I see what you mean."

Next day Lieutenant Guentz and Frau Klaere called at the colonel's, and
regular intercourse soon established itself between the neighbours.
Marie von Falkenhein was secretly enraptured with Klaere Guentz and her
"sweet baby"; while Klaere took to her heart the fair young girl who had
so early lost a mother's love.

From this time the social status of the former governess was completely
changed. Frau Lischke invited that "delightful" Frau Guentz to her
select coffee parties. But Klaere excused herself on the plea that she
was nursing her baby and could not be away from him for more than two
hours together.

Later in the year, when the evenings were warmer, and it was tempting
to linger in the open air, the neighbours took to meeting together for
supper in one garden or the other. The occupants of Waisenhaus Strasse
No. 55 and those of No. 57 alternately provided the comestibles.

Reimers was always free of the table. Once he triumphantly contributed
a liver sausage with truffles; but he was ruthlessly snubbed by Klaere
for bringing such a thing in the dog-days.

The little clique was much censured by the regiment. Such familiar
intercourse, it was thought, undermined the authority of the colonel.
Nevertheless, people were eager for the goodwill of Frau Guentz.

Thus it came about that Guentz had the satisfaction of seeing his wife
one of the most popular ladies of the regiment, and was able to tease
her with the new discovery that she was "exclusive, not to say stuck up
and proud."

In reality Klaere had only become intimate with two of the ladies. After
Marie von Falkenhein she foregathered chiefly with Hannah von
Gropphusen.

The latter was a real puzzle to her new friends. She was always
alternating in her moods from one extreme to the other. Sometimes she
would not appear for weeks at a time; then she would come down day
after day, each time seeming unable to tear herself away. Now she would
be full of nervous, overwrought vivacity, and again would sit perfectly
silent, staring gloomily before her.

Guentz fled from her presence; he said she made him feel creepy. Once he
whispered mysteriously in his wife's ear: "Do you know, I believe she
and Gropphusen have committed a murder between them: