enoon, he was standing with Albertine
at the window, where the white curtains were drawn, and (on the
principle we have been explaining), in order to give more force to what
he was saying to her, was holding her in his arms, and kissing her
hand.

At this particular hour and moment, Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy
Chancery, happened to be passing Bosswinkel's house, with the 'Treatise
on Diplomatic Acumen,' and sundry tractates and pamphlets (in which
the useful and the entertaining were combined in due measure) in his
pockets. And although he was bounding along as fast as ever he
could--according to his manner--because the clock was just on the very
stroke of the hour at which he used always to enter his office, still
he drew up for a moment, in order to cast a sentimental glance up at
the window of his love.

There he saw, as in a cloud, Albertine with Edmund; and, although he
could not make out anything at all distinctly, his heart throbbed, he
knew not why. Some strange sense of anxious alarm impelled him to
undertake things previously unattempted, undreamt of, namely, to go
upstairs to Albertine's rooms, at this totally unprecedented hour of
the day.

As he entered, Albertine was saying, quite distinctly:

"Oh, yes, Edmund! I must always--always love you!" And she pressed
Edmund to her heart, whilst a whole battery of "restoration of
electrical equilibrium" began to go off, rushing and sparkling.

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery walked mechanically forward into the
room, and then stood, dumb and speechless, like a man in a cataleptic
fit. In the height of their blissfulness the two lovers had not heard
the elephantine tread of Tussmann's peculiar boot-like shoes, nor his
opening of the door, nor his coming in, and striding into the middle of
the room.

He now squeaked out, in his high falsetto:

"But--Miss Albertine Bosswinkel!----"

Edmund and Albertine fled apart like lightning--he to his easel, she to
the chair where she was supposed to be sitting for her portrait.
Tussmann, after a short pause, during which he tried to get back his
breath, resumed, saying--

"But, Miss Albertine Bosswinkel, what are you doing? What are you
after? First of all, you go and waltz with this young gentleman (I
haven't the honour of his acquaintance), in the Town-hall at twelve
o'clock at night, in a way that made me, your husband that is to be,
almost lose the faculties of seeing and hearing; and now--here--in
broad da