"Yellow, yellow...." He shook his head. "I must apply a curb to my
feelings."

Upon the whole, however, he had reason to be fairly satisfied with
himself. His figure, despite the approach of his fortieth year, had
remained slender and elastic. The sternly chiselled face, surrounded
by a short, half-pointed beard, showed neither flabbiness nor bloat.
It was only around the dark, weary eyes that the experiences of the
past night had laid a net-work of wrinkles and shadows. Ten years
ago pleasure had driven the hair from his temples, but it grew
energetically upon his crown and rose, above his forehead, in a
Mephistophelian curve.

The civilian's costume which often lends retired officers a guise of
excessive spick-and-spanness had gradually combined with an easier
bearing to give his figure a natural elegance. To be sure, six years
had passed since, displeased by a nagging major, he had definitely
hung up the dragoon's coat of blue.

He was wealthy enough to have been able to indulge in the luxury of
that displeasure. In addition his estates demanded more rigorous
management.... From Christmas to late spring he lived in Berlin, where
his older brother occupied one of those positions at court that mean
little enough either to superior or inferior ranks, but which, in a
certain social set dependent upon the court, have an influence of
inestimable value. Without assuming the part of either a social lion
or a patron, he used this influence with sufficient thoroughness to be
popular, even, in certain cases, to be feared, and belonged to that
class of men to whom one always confides one's difficulties, never