teway. Benda laid one hand on Daniel's shoulder, and
pointed in silence at the sky with the other. There were no stars to be
seen; nothing but clouds. Benda however had the stars in mind. Daniel
understood his gesture. His eyelids closed; around his mouth there was
an expression of vehement grief.

II

Benda was convinced, not merely that one great misfortune had already
taken place, but that a still greater was in the making.

Whenever he thought of Dorothea, the picture that came to his mind was
one that filled him with fear. And yet, he thought, she must have some
remarkable traits, otherwise Daniel would never have chosen her as his
life companion. He wanted to meet her.

He had Daniel invite him in to tea. He called one evening early in the
afternoon.

She received him with expressions of ostentatious joy. She said she
could hardly wait until he came, for there was nothing in the world that
made such an impression on her as a man who had really run great risks,
who had placed his very life at stake. She could not become tired of
asking him questions. At each of his laconic replies she would shake her
head with astonishment. Then she rested her elbows on her knees, placed
her head in her hands, bent over and stared at him as though he were
some kind of prodigy--or monster.

She asked him whether he had been among cannibals, whether he had shot
any savages, whether he had hunted lions, and whether it was really true
that every Negro chieftain had hundreds of wives. When she asked this
question she made an insidious face, and remarked that Europeans would
do the same thing if the law allowed.

Thereupon she said that she could not recall having seen him, when still
a child, in her father's house, and she was surprised at this, for he
had such a striking personality. She devoured him with her eyes; they
began to burn as they always did when she wanted to make some kind of
human capture, and blind greed came over her. She unbent; she spoke in
her very sweetest voice; in her laugh and her smile there was, in fact,
something irresistible, something like that trait we notice in good,
confiding, but at times obstinate children.

But she noticed that this man studied her, not as if she were a young
married woman who were trying to please him and gain his sympathy,
rather as a curious variety of the human species. There was something in
his face that made her tremble with irritatio