“Chris!” said Greta some days after this, “Miss Naylor danced last
evening; I think she shall have a headache to-day. There is my French
and my history this morning.”
“Well, I can take them.”
“That is nice; then we can talk. I am sorry about the headache. I shall
give her some of my Eau de Cologne.”
Miss Naylor's headaches after dancing were things on which to calculate.
The girls carried their books into the arbour; it was a showery day, and
they had to run for shelter through the raindrops and sunlight.
“The French first, Chris!” Greta liked her French, in which she was
not far inferior to Christian; the lesson therefore proceeded in an
admirable fashion. After one hour exactly by her watch (Mr. Treffry's
birthday present loved and admired at least once every hour) Greta rose.
“Chris, I have not fed my rabbits.”
“Be quick! there's not much time for history.”
Greta vanished. Christian watched the bright water dripping from the
roof; her lips were parted in a smile. She was thinking of something
Harz had said the night before. A discussion having been started as to
whether average opinion did, or did not, safeguard Society, Harz, after
sitting silent, had burst out: “I think one man in earnest is better
than twenty half-hearted men who follow tamely; in the end he does
Society most good.”
Dawney had answered: “If you had your way there would be no Society.”
“I hate Society because it lives upon the weak.”
“Bah!” Herr Paul chimed in; “the weak goes to the wall; that is as
certain as that you and I are here.”
“Let them fall against the wall,” cried Harz; “don't push them
there....”
Greta reappeared, walking pensively in the rain.
“Bino,” she said, sighing, “has eaten too much. I remember now, I did
feed them before. Must we do the history, Chris?”
“Of course!”
Greta opened her book, and put a finger in the page. “Herr Harz is very
kind to me,” she said. “Yesterday he brought a bird which had come
into his studio with a hurt wing; he brought it very gently in his
handkerchief—he is very kind, the bird was not even frightened of him.
You did not know about that, Chris?”