He found endless opportunities of relieving misery and
distress in this poor quarter of the town, and as he was a rich man,
and independent of his own creature comforts, he could put his
philosophy of compassion into practice to his heart's content.
Wilhelm took up his work again at the Laboratory, and also resumed
his visits to the Ellrichs, but it was with an increasing
discomfort. The councilor, who had been distinguished for his
services in the financial transactions with the French Government,
had heard the story of the refusal of the Iron Cross. He thought it
very ridiculous, and his early friendship for Wilhelm became
markedly cooler. Even Frau Ellrich's motherly feeling for him
received a check, and modesty and shyness no longer seemed a
sufficient explanation of the unaccountable delay in his love-
making. Only Loulou was apparently the same, whenever he came,
always lively and friendly, but when he left she was affectionate
without any display of emotion, grateful for tender glances, not
withholding quiet kisses, but not offering them--her calm manner
almost mysterious, as if love were simply something superficial and
of small import. Wilhelm could no longer deny that his first love,
which had stirred his being to the depths, was a mistake, but he
could not bring himself to definitely end the existing conditions.
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