Beside Loulou and Frau Ellrich there were Fraulein Malvine Marker, with her mother, and also Herr von Pechlar, the lieutenant of hussars of cotillion fame.
"Have you come too to say good-by ?" cried Loulou, going to meet Wilhelm.
Her face looked troubled, and her voice trembled, and yet Wilhelm felt as if a shower of cold water had drenched his head.

The insincerity of their relations, her distant manner before the others, but above all the unfortunate word "too," including him with the lieutenant, put him so much out of tune that all his previous intentions vanished, and he sank at once to the position of an ordinary visitor.
Herr von Pechlar led the conversation, and took no notice of the new guest's presence.

He oppressed Wilhelm, and made him feel small by the smartness of his uniform, his rank as first lieutenant, and his eyeglasses.

Wilhelm tried hard to fight against the feeling.

After all, he was the better man of the two, and if human nature alone had been put in the scale--that is to say, the value both of body and mind--Herr von Pechlar would have flown up light as a feather.