His brother laughed.  “Then that’s why the evening you came back you didn’t dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?”

“I would have danced with your wife,” replied Apollonius.  “You warned me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me.  Then I didn’t want to dance at all.  You brought Anne up to me, and when you went you asked her if I might see her home.  I couldn’t do anything else under the circumstances.  I have never thought of Anne in connection with—­”

“Marriage?” interrupted his brother laughing.  “Well, she’s pretty enough to—­amuse yourself with too, and it’s worth the trouble to make her perfectly mad about you.

“Fritz!” exclaimed Apollonius, displeased.  “But you’re not in earnest,” he added to soothe himself.  “I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn’t right to jest lightly about a respectable girl.”

“Pshaw,” said his brother, “if she behaves like that herself!  What does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?”

“She hasn’t done that,” answered Apollonius hotly.  “She is a good girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong.”

“Yes, or you would have put her right,” laughed Fritz, and there was mockery in his voice.

“Did I know what she thought?” said Apollonius.  “You’ve teased her about me and me about her.  I have done nothing that could have awakened any such thoughts in her.  I should have thought it a sin.”

The men went back the way they had come.  It did not occur to Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood.  All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her husband.  It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was false.  He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her.  Everything had been a lie from the beginning.  Her husband was persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good.  Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the persecuted.  Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the complete abandon of innocence.  She did not know it.  Oh, that she might never learn to know it!  As soon as she learnt to know it would become a sin.—­And already the steps were rustling through the grass that were to bring her the bitter knowledge.

Fritz Nettenmair had to erect a new dividing wall before he could bring his brother to his wife.  He came for this purpose.  His gait was uneven.  He was still choosing and could not decide.  He became even more uncertain when he stood before her.  He read what she felt in her face; it was too honest to conceal anything; it knew too little of what it spoke to think it must hide this feeling.  He felt that he could do nothing more with her by repeating