"Where?" the Baron asked, staring at a photograph of Kläre which stood in a narrow gold frame on the piano.
"Where? That I don't know," said Frau Ringeiser. "About eight o'clock this morning Fräulein Heil was here in person and begged me to let Fanny go along with her. Well, she just asked so beautifully—I simply couldn't say no."
"But where . . . where!" Leisenbohg insisted.
"That I really couldn't say. Fanny is to telegraph me as soon as Fräulein Heil makes up her mind where she is going to stay. Perhaps as early as to-morrow morning, or the morning after."
"So," Leisenbohg said, letting himself sink down on a little cane-bottomed stool in front of the piano. He was silent a few seconds; then he arose suddenly, held out his hand to Frau Ringeiser, begged her forgiveness for the trouble he had caused her, and slowly descended the dark stairway of the old house.
He shook his head. She had been very cautious, to be sure . . . much more cautious than necessary. For she might have known that he would not have been importunate.
"Where shall we go, Herr Baron?" the driver asked, and Leisenbohg noticed that he had been sitting in the open carriage for quite a while simply staring in front of him. Following a sudden impulse he answered, "To the Hotel Bristol."
Sigurd Olse had not yet left. He sent word that the Baron should be asked to come up to his room, received him warmly, and suggested that they spend the last evening of his stay in Vienna together. Leisenbohg had already been deeply affected by the fact that Sigurd Olse was still in Vienna; and this added amiability touched him to tears. Sigurd immediately began speaking of Kläre. He begged Leisenbohg to tell him as much of her as he could, for he knew perfectly that her oldest and dearest friend stood before him in the person of the Baron. So Leisenbohg sat down on a trunk and talked of Kläre. It was soothing to him that he could discuss her. . . . He told the singer nearly everything, with the exception of certain facts which he felt bound as a gentleman to leave unspoken. Sigurd listened, and seemed to be charmed.
At supper the singer invited his friend to leave Vienna with him this very evening and accompany him to his estate at Molde. The Baron was strangely moved. He did not accept for the present, but promised to visit him in the course of the summer.
