The water was icily cold in the shadow of the cliffs, but it was a wonderful feeling getting all the closeness of the night dashed off me in that vast and splendid morning solitude. Dripping I hurried up again, my skirt and cloak over the soaked bathing dress, my wet feet thrust into shoes I could never afterwards wear, a trickle of salt water marking the way I took. It was just five o'clock as I got in at the window. In another quarter of an hour I was dry and dressed and out of the window a second time—getting in and out of that window had a singular fascination for me—and on my way for an early exploring of the woods.
But those Stubbenkammer woods were destined never to be explored by me; for I had hardly walked ten minutes along their beechen ways listening to the birds and stopping every few steps to look up at the blue of the sky between the branches, before I came to the Hertha See, a mysterious silent pond of black water with reeds round it and solemn forest paths, and on the moss by the shore of the Hertha See, his eyes fixed on its sullen waters, deep in thought, sat the Professor.
'Don't tell me you have forgotten me again,' I exclaimed anxiously; for his eyes turned from the lake to me as I came over the moss to him in an unchanged abstraction. What was he doing there? He looked exceedingly untidy, and his boots were white with dust.
'Good morning,' I said cheerfully, as he continued to gaze straight through me.
'I have no doubt whatever that this was the place,' he remarked, 'and Klüver was correct in his conjecture.'
'Now what is the use,' I said, sitting down on the moss beside him, 'of talking to me like that when I don't know the beginning? Who is Klüver? And what did he conjecture?'
His eyes suddenly flashed out of their dream, and he smiled and patted my hand. 'Why, it is the little cousin,' he said, looking pleased.
'It is. May I ask what you are doing here?'
'Doing? Agreeing with Klüver that this is undoubtedly the spot.'
'What spot?'