He was expected back in the evening, when they were all to go for a row on the Alster.
Spring was unusually early that year; the trees showed gay sprigs of green already, the air was wonderfully mild and balmy, and in the exhilarating blue of the sky feathery white cloudlets were floating, whose course one was fain to follow with sweet dreams and fancies.

It was a sin to stay indoors on such a lovely afternoon, Malvine declared, and so proposed that they should go out to the terrace overlooking the water and sit there till Paul came home.
The terrace belonged to the villa in the Carlstrasse, laying on the path round the shore which bears with perfect right the name "An der schonen Aussicht"-- the beautiful view--and was built out in a square into the Alster.

A low stone parapet surrounded it on three sides, the fourth--that toward the pathway--being formed by an iron paling with a locked gate in it.

One corner of the terrace, which was otherwise paved with asphalt, was laid out in a round flower bed, in which the primroses and violets were just beginning to come up.

Near the balustrade at the waterside, under a large tentlike umbrella, stood a garden table and a few chairs.