“Give Belotti whatever you choose, but soon, for I shan’t stay here much longer.”

Wilhelm gazed after her.  She walked no less quickly and firmly through the wide hall and up the stairs, than she had spoken, and again he was vividly reminded of his friend in Rome.

The old Italian had also followed Henrica with his eyes.  As she vanished at the last bend of the broad steps, he shrugged his shoulders, turned to the musician and said, with an expression of honest sympathy: 

“The young lady isn’t well.  Always in a tumult; always like a loaded pistol, and these terrible headaches too!  She was different when she came here.”

“Is she ill?”

“My mistress won’t see it,” replied the servant.  “But what the cameriera and I see, we see.  Now red—­now pale, no rest at night, at table she scarcely eats a chicken-wing and a leaf of salad.”

“Does the doctor share your anxiety?”

“The doctor?  Doctor Fleuriel isn’t here.  He moved to Ghent when the Spaniards came, and since then my mistress will have nobody but the barber who bleeds her.  The doctors here are devoted to the Prince of Orange and are all heretics.  There, she is calling again.  I’ll send the cloak to your house, and if you ever feel inclined to speak my language, just knock here.  That calling—­that everlasting calling!  The young lady suffers from it too.”

When Wilhelm entered the street, it was only raining very slightly.  The clouds were beginning to scatter, and from a patch of blue sky the sun was shining brightly down on Nobelstrasse.  A rainbow shimmered in variegated hues above the roofs, but to-day the musician had no eyes for the beautiful spectacle.  The bright light in the wet street did not charm him.  The hot rays of the day-star were not lasting, for “they drew rain.”  All that surrounded him seemed confused and restless.  Beside a beautiful image which he treasured in the sanctuary of his memories, only allowing his mind to dwell upon it in his happiest hours, sought to intrude.  His real diamond was in danger of being exchanged for a stone, whose value he did not know.  With the old, pure harmony blended another similar one, but in a different key.  How could he still think of Isabella, without remembering Henrica!  At least he had not heard the young lady sing, so his recollection of Isabella’s songs remained unclouded.  He blamed himself because, obeying an emotion of vanity, he had promised to send new songs to the proud young girl, the friend of Spain.  He had treated Herr Matanesse Van Wibisma rudely on account of his opinions, but sought to approach her, who laughed at what he prized most highly, because she was a woman, and it was sweet to hear his work praised by beautiful lips.  “Hercules throws the club aside and sits down at the distaff, when Omphale beckons, and the beautiful Esther and the daughter of Herodias—­” murmured Wilhelm indignantly.  He felt sorely troubled, and longed for his quiet attic chamber beside the dove-cote.