e beautiful Frau Heimert's
charms was, curiously enough, Sergeant Heppner. Once, when Albina
chanced to meet him in the corridor, she said: "When I first met you,
Herr Heppner--you remember that day at Grundmann's--you were perfectly
different--ever so much smarter and livelier! Really, I almost think
you must be ageing, Herr Heppner!" And she burst into a shrill,
affected laugh, which rang rather unpleasantly in his ears.

As Heppner sat in his armchair by the stove he contrasted his pretty,
healthy, buxom Ida with the woman next door, and would be seized with a
veritable horror of the all-pervasive odour of the scent she used.

He would make a disdainful grimace when Albina, in a huge hat, rustled
past him, and would greet her carelessly, almost discourteously.

But with the spring the old spirit of restlessness possessed the
sergeant-major.

Ida was expecting her confinement in May, and had no thoughts but for
the child. Heppner began to marvel at himself for having been so
domestic all the winter. Surely his limbs must have been benumbed and
this brain addled! He really must rouse himself now and get a few new
ideas into his head. So he easily slipped back into his old wild ways
of life, and could less and less understand how he had come to live
otherwise during so many months.

His former boon-companions welcomed him back joyfully, and it was not
long before he was once more at cards with them. The promise he had
given to Trautvetter he should construe after his own views; he would
be careful to keep within bounds, under all circumstances.

It happened, nevertheless, that he lost at times; and to meet
such little reverses he was obliged to borrow from the battery
cash-box, for Ida kept a tight hand on the purse-strings, and he could
not bring himself to cut down her housekeeping money. Of course, to
balance these bad days there were runs of good luck, when he had a
considerable surplus; but, like a true gambler, he did not set his
winnings against his losses, considering them as so much pure gain,
which enabled him to indulge in extravagances. He made new holes in
order to stop up the old ones.

About this time Frau Albina Heimert spoke to him again one day.

"Thank heaven!" she said. "You seem to have roused up a bit, Herr
Heppner! I quite began to fear you were becoming a hopeless rustic."

The sergeant-major watched her thoughtfully as, with her provoking
little air, she disappeared into her own quarte