Loulou to the opera or
theater, but all these opportunities were not favorable for young
lovers. Loulou wore beautiful frocks, which made her much admired; the
people were formal, and tolerated nothing that was not ultra polite and
polished, in short, it was impossible to be true and natural as things
had been in the forest, where the birds and the happy little squirrels
served for playfellows.

Loulou was the first to have pity on Wilhelm's discomfort, and to find
means to give their intercourse in Berlin at least a little of the
beautiful unconstraint of the old times. Under the pretext that she
wished to improve herself in drawing, she obtained many precious hours
spent in the blue-room or in the winter garden, where their hands often
found opportunities to clasp, and their lips to seek each other's. On
the strength of Loulou's English education, which had made her
independent and self-reliant, and had freed her from any affectation of
shyness, she often walked with Wilhelm to parts of the town which she
did not know, or which she had only seen from the windows of a
carriage. On one of these voyages of discovery, as she called them, she
saw Paul for the first time. He met them in the Konigstrasse, as they
stood on the Konigsmauer, Loulou looking half-fearfully down the narrow
street. Paul looked very much astonished, and seemed as if he were not
going to notice the pair of lovers, but Wilhelm nodded and asked him to
join them. So he went home with them, and as soon as he was alone with
his friend he fell into rapturous admiration of the lovely girl, as
Wilhelm had predicted in his letter from Hornberg. One thing Paul could
not understand, and he said so: why had not Wilhelm formally asked for
Loulou's hand, why he was not properly engaged to her, and how could an
impulsive man bear such a constrained position, which would cease the
instant that he was Fraulein Ellrich's declared fiance?

Wilhelm had at first no explanation to give his friend, but he knew
very well that he delayed, and that he put off from day to day going to
Loulou's parents. His was a sensitive, dreamy nature, and much too
thoughtful to allow himself to act from passion. He was accustomed to
make his impulses subordinate to his reason, and to ask himself severe
questions as to the where, how, and why of things. He was not clear
himself as to the condition of things between him and Loulou. Did she
love him? There were many answers to that. She seeme