Part I

S'amor non e che dunque e quel ch'io sento?

Ma s'egli e amor, per Dio, che cosa e quale?

PETRARCH

I.

One noon in 189-, a young man stood in front of the new Gewandhaus in

Leipzig, and watched the neat, grass-laid square, until then white and

silent in the sunshine, grow dark with many figures.

The public rehearsal of the weekly concert was just over, and, from the

half light of the warm-coloured hall, which for more than two hours had

held them secluded, some hundreds of people hastened, with renewed

anticipation, towards sunlight and street sounds. There was a medley of

tongues, for many nationalities were represented in the crowd that

surged through the ground-floor and out of the glass doors, and much

noisy ado, for the majority was made up of young people, at an age that

enjoys the sound of its own voice. In black, diverging lines they

poured through the heavy swinging doors, which flapped ceaselessly to

and fro, never quite closing, always opening afresh, and on descending

the shallow steps, they told off into groups, where all talked at once,

with lively gesticulation. A few faces had the strained look that

indicates the conscientious listener; but most of these young musicians

were under the influence of a stimulant more potent than wine, which

manifested itself in a nervous garrulity and a nervous mirth.

They hummed like bees before a hive. Maurice Guest, who had come out

among the first, lingered to watch a scene that was new to him, of

which he was as yet an onlooker only. Here and there came a member of

the orchestra; with violin-case or black-swathed wind-instrument in

hand, he deftly threaded his way through the throng, bestowing, as he

went, a hasty nod of greeting upon a colleague, a sweep of the hat on

an obsequious pupil. The crowd began to disperse and to overflow in the

surrounding streets. Some of the stragglers loitered to swell the group

that was forming round the back entrance to the building; here the

lank-haired Belgian violinist would appear, the wonders of whose

technique had sent thrills of enthusiasm through his hearers, and whose

close proximity would presently affect them in precisely the same way.

Others again made off, not for the town, with its prosaic suggestion of

work and confinement, but for the freedom of the woods that lay beyond.

Maurice Guest followed them.

It was a blowy day in early spring. Round white masses of cloud moved

lightly across a deep blue sky, and the trees, still thin and naked,

bent their heads and shook their branches, as if to elude the gambols

of a boisterous playfellow. The sun shone vividly, with restored power,

and though the clouds sometimes passed over his very face, the shadows

only lasted for a moment, and each returning radiance seemed brighter

than the one before. In the pure breath of the wind, as it gustily

swept the earth, was a promise of things vernal, of the tender beauties

of a coming spring; but there was still a keen, delightful freshness in

the air, a vague reminder of frosty starlights and serene white

snow--the untrodden snow of deserted, moon-lit streets--that quickened

the blood, and sent a craving for movement through the veins. The

people who trod the broad, clean roads and the paths of the wood walked

with a spring in their steps; voices were light and high, and each

breath that was drawn increased the sense of buoyancy, of undiluted

satisfaction. With these bursts of golden sunshine, so other than the

pallid gleamings of the winter, came a fresh impulse to life; and the

most insensible was dimly conscious how much had to be made up for, how

much lived into such a day.

Maurice Guest walked among the mossgreen tree-trunks, each of which

vied with the other in the brilliancy of its coating. He was under the

sway of a twofold intoxication: great music and a day rich in promise.

From the flood of melody that had broken over him, the frenzied storms

of applause, he had come out, not into a lamplit darkness that would

have crushed his elation back upon him and hemmed it in, but into the

spacious lightness of a fair blue day, where all that he felt could

expand, as a flower does in the sun.

His walk brought him to a broad stream, which flashed through the wood

like a line of light. He paused on a suspension bridge, and leaning

over the railing, gazed up the river into the distance, at the horizon

and its trees, delicate and feathery in their nakedness against the

sky. Swollen with recent rains and snows, the water came hurrying

towards him--the storm-bed of the little river, which, meandering in

from the country, through pleasant woods, in ever narrowing curves, ran

through the town as a small stream, to be swelled again on the

outskirts by the waters of two other rivers, which joined it at right

angles. The bridge trembled at first, when other people crossed it, on

their way to the woods that lay on the further side, but soon the last

stragglers vanished, and he was alone.

As he looked about, eager to discover beauty in the strip of landscape

that stretched before him--the line of water, its banks of leafless

trees--he was instinctively filled with a desire for something grander,

for a feature in the scene that would answer to his mood. There, where

the water appeared to end in a clump of trees, there, should be

mountains, a gently undulating line, blue with the unapproachable blue

of distance, and high enough to form a background to the view; in

summer, heavy with haze, melting into the sky; in winter, lined and

edged with snow. From this, his thoughts sprang back to the music he

had heard that morning. All the vague yet eager hopes that had run riot

in his brain, for months past, seemed to have been summed up and made

clear to him, in one supreme phrase of it, a great phrase in C major,

in the concluding movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. First sounded

by the shrill sweet winds, it had suddenly been given out by the

strings, in magnificent unison, and had mounted up and on, to the

jubilant trilling of the little flutes. There was such a courageous

sincerity in this theme, such undauntable resolve; it expressed more

plainly than words what he intended his life of the next few years to

be; for he was full to the brim of ambitious intentions, which he had

never yet had a chance of putting into practice. He felt so ready for

work, so fresh and unworn; the fervour of a deep enthusiasm was rampant

in him. What a single-minded devotion to art, he promised himself his

should be! No other fancy or interest should share his heart with it,

he vowed that to himself this day, when he stood for the first time on

historic ground, where the famous musicians of the past had found

inspiration for their immortal works. And his thoughts spread their

wings and circled above his head; he saw himself already of these

masters' craft, their art his, he wrenching ever new secrets from them,

penetrating the recesses of their genius, becoming one of themselves.

In a vision as vivid as those that cross the brain in a sleepless

night, he saw a dark, compact multitude wait, with breath suspended, to

catch the notes that fell like raindrops from his fingers; saw himself

the all-conspicuous figure, as, with masterful gestures, he compelled

the soul that lay dormant in brass and strings, to give voice to, to

interpret to the many, his subtlest emotions. And he was overcome by a

tremulous compassion with himself at the idea of wielding such power

over an unknown multitude, at the latent nobility of mind and aim this

power implied.

Even when swinging back to the town, he had not shaken himself free of

dreams. The quiet of a foreign midday lay upon the streets, and there

were few discordant sounds, few passers-by, to break the chain of his

thought. He had movement, silence, space. And as is usual with

active-brained dreamers, he had little or no eye for the real life

about him; he was not struck by the air of comfortable prosperity, of

thriving content, which marked the great commercial centre, and he let

pass, unnoticed, the unfamiliar details of a foreign street, the

trifling yet significant incidents of foreign life. Such impressions as

he received, bore the stamp of his own mood. He was sensible, for

instance, in face of the picturesque houses that clustered together in

the centre of the town, of the spiritual GEMUTLICHKEIT, the absence of

any pomp or pride in their romantic past, which characterises the old

buildings of a German town. These quaint and stately houses, wedged one

into the other, with their many storeys, their steeply sloping roofs

and eye-like roof-windows, were still in sympathetic touch with the

trivial life of the day which swarmed in and about them. He wandered

leisurely along the narrow streets that ran at all angles off the

Market Place, one side of which was formed by the gabled RATHAUS, with

its ground-floor row of busy little shops; and, in fancy, he peopled

these streets with the renowned figures that had once walked them. He

looked up at the dark old houses in which great musicians had lived,

died and been born, and he saw faces that he recognised lean out of the

projecting windows, to watch the life and bustle below, to catch the

last sunbeam that filtered in; he saw them take their daily walk along

these very streets, in the antiquated garments of their time. They

passed him by, shadelike and misanthropic, and seemed to steal down the

opposite side, to avoid his too pertinent gaze. Bluff, preoccupied, his

keen eyes lowered, the burly Cantor passed, as he had once done day

after day, with the disciplined regularity of high genius, of the

honest citizen, to his appointed work in the shadows of the organ-loft;

behind him, one who had pointed to the giant with a new burst of

ardour, the genial little improviser, whose triumphs had been those of

this town, whose fascinating gifts and still more fascinating

personality, had made him the lion of his age. And it was only another

step in this train of half-conscious thought, that, before a large

lettered poster, which stood out black and white against the reds and

yellows of the circular advertisement-column, and bore the word

"Siegfried," Maurice Guest should not merely be filled with the

anticipation of a world of beauty still unexplored, but that the world

should stand to him for a symbol, as it were, of the easeful and

luxurious side of a life dedicated to art--of a world-wide fame; the

society of princes, kings; the gloss of velvet; the dull glow of

gold.--And again, tapering vistas opened up, through which he could

peer into the future, happy in the knowledge, that he stood firm in a

present which made all things possible to a holy zeal, to an

unhesitating grasp.

But it was growing late, and he slowly retraced his steps. In the

restaurant into which he turned for dinner, he was the only customer.

The principal business of the day was at an end; two waiters sat dozing

in corners, and a man behind the counter, who was washing metal-topped

beer-glasses, had almost the whole pile polished bright before him.

Maurice Guest sat down at a table by the window; and, when he had

finished his dinner and lighted a cigarette, he watched the passers-by,

who crossed the pane of glass like the figures in a moving photograph.

Suddenly the door opened with an energetic click, and a lady came in,

enveloped in an old-fashioned, circular cloak, and carrying on one arm

a pile of paper-covered music. This, she laid on the table next that at

which the young man was sitting, then took off her hat. When she had

also hung up the unbecoming cloak, he saw that she was young and

slight. For the rest, she seemed to bring with her, into the warm,

tranquil atmosphere of the place, heavy with midday musings, a breath

of wind and outdoor freshness--a suggestion that was heightened by the

quick decisiveness of her movements: the briskness with which she

divested herself of her wrappings, the quick smooth of the hair on

either side, the business-like way in which she drew up her chair to

the table and unfolded her napkin.

She seemed to be no stranger there, for, on her entrance, the younger

and more active waiter had at once sprung up with officious haste, and

almost before she was ready, the little table was newly spread and set,

and the dinner of the day before her. She spoke to the man in a

friendly way as she took her seat, and he replied with a pleased and

smiling respect.

Then she began to eat, deliberately, and with an overemphasised nicety.

As she carried her soup-spoon to her lips, Maurice Guest felt that she

was observing him; and throughout the meal, of which she ate but

little, he was aware of a peculiarly straight and penetrating gaze. It

ended by disconcerting him. Beckoning the waiter, he went through the

business of paying his bill, and this done, was about to push back his

chair and rise to his feet, when the man, in gathering up the money,

addressed what seemed to be a question to him. Fearful lest he had made

a mistake in the strange coinage, Maurice looked up apprehensively. The

waiter repeated his words, but the slight nervousness that gained on

the young man made him incapable of separating the syllables, which

were indistinguishably blurred. He coloured, stuttered, and felt

mortally uncomfortable, as, for the third time, the waiter repeated his

remark, with the utmost slowness.

At this point, the girl at the adjacent table put down her knife and

fork, and leaned slightly forward.

"Excuse me," she said, and smiled. "The waiter only said he thought you

must be a stranger here: DER HERR IST GEWISS FREMD IN LEIPZIG?" Her

rather prominent teeth were visible as she spoke.

Maurice, who understood instantly her pronunciation of the words, was

not set any more at his ease by her explanation. "Thanks very much." he

said, still redder than usual. "I ... er ... thought the fellow was

saying something about the money."

"And the Saxon dialect is barbarous, isn't it?" she added kindly. "But

perhaps you have not had much experience of it yet."

"No. I only arrived this morning."

At this, she opened her eyes wide. "Why, you are a courageous person!"

she said and laughed, but did not explain what she meant, and he did

not like to ask her.

A cup of coffee was set on the table before her; she held a lump of

sugar in her spoon, and watched it grow brown and dissolve. "Are you

going to make a long stay?" she asked, to help him over his

embarrassment.

"Two years, I hope," said the young man.

"Music?" she queried further, and, as he replied affirmatively: "Then

the Con. of course?"--an enigmatic question that needed to be

explained. "You're piano, are you not?" she went on. "I thought so. It

is hardly possible to mistake the hands"--here she just glanced at her

own, which, large, white, and well formed, were lying on the table.

"With strings, you know, the right hand is as a rule shockingly

defective."

He found the high clearness of her voice very agreeable after the deep

roundnesses of German, and could have gone on listening to it. But she

was brushing the crumbs from her skirt, preparatory to rising.

"Are you an old resident here?" he queried in the hope of detaining her.

"Yes, quite. I'm at the end of my second year; and don't know whether

to be glad or sorry," she answered. "Time goes like a flash.--Now, look

here, as one who knows the ways of the place, would you let me give you

a piece of advice? Yes?--It's this. You intend to enter the

Conservatorium, you say. Well, be sure you get under a good man--that's

half the battle. Try and play privately to either Schwarz or Bendel. If

you go in for the public examination with all the rest, the people in

the BUREAU will put you to anyone they like, and that is disastrous.

Choose your own master, and beard him in his den beforehand."

"Yes ... and you recommend? May I ask whom you are with?" he said

eagerly.

"Schwarz is my master; and I couldn't wish for a better. But Bendel is

good, too, in his way, and is much sought after by the

Americans--you're not American, are you? No.--Well, the English colony

runs the American close nowadays. We're a regular army. If you don't

want to, you need hardly mix with foreigners as long as you're here. We

have our clubs and balls and other social functions--and our

geniuses--and our masters who speak English like natives ... But

there!--you'll soon know all about it yourself."

She nodded pleasantly and rose.

"I must be off," she said. "To-day every minute is precious. That

wretched PROBE spoils the morning, and directly it is over, I have to

rush to an organ-lesson--that's why I'm here. For I can't expect a

PENSION to keep dinner hot for me till nearly three o'clock--can I?

Morning rehearsals are a mistake. What?--you were there, too?

Really?--after a night in the train? Well, you didn't get much, did

you, for your energy? A dull aria, an overture that 'belongs in the

theatre,' as they say here, an indifferently played symphony that one

has heard at least a dozen times. And for us poor pianists, not a fresh

dish this season. Nothing but yesterday's remains heated up again."

She laughed as she spoke, and Maurice Guest laughed, too, not being

able at the moment to think of anything to say.

Getting the better of the waiter, who stood by, napkin on arm, smiling

and officious, he helped her into the unbecoming cloak; then took up

the parcel of music and opened the door. In his manner of doing this,

there may have been a touch of over-readiness, for no sooner was she

outside, than she quietly took the music from him, and, without even

offering him her hand, said a friendly but curt good-bye: almost before

he had time to return it, he saw her hurrying up the street, as though

she had never vouchsafed him word or thought. The abruptness of the

dismissal left him breathless; in his imagination, they had walked at

least a strip of the street together. He stepped off the pavement into

the road, that he might keep her longer in sight, and for some time he

saw her head, in the close-fitting hat, bobbing along above the heads

of other people.

On turning again, he found that the waiter was watching him from the

window of the restaurant, and it seemed to the young man that the pale,

servile face wore a malicious smile. With the feeling of disconcertion

that springs from being caught in an impulsive action we have believed

unobserved, Maurice spun round on his heel and took a few quick steps

in the opposite direction. When once he was out of range of the window,

however, he dropped his pace, and at the next corner stopped

altogether. He would at least have liked to know her name. And what in

all the world was he to do with himself now?

Clouds had gathered; the airy blue and whiteness of the morning had

become a level sheet of grey, which wiped the colour out of everything;

the wind, no longer tempered by the sun, was chilly, as it whirled down

the narrow streets and freaked about the corners. There was little

temptation now to linger on one's steps. But Maurice Guest was loath to

return to the solitary room that stood to him for home, to shut himself

up with himself, inside four walls: and turning up his coat collar, he

began to walk slowly along the curved GRIMMAISCHESTRASSE. But the

streets were by this time black with people, most of whom came hurrying

towards him, brisk and bustling, and gay, in spite of the prevailing

dullness, at the prospect of the warm, familiar evening. He was

continually obliged to step off the pavement into the road, to allow a

bunch of merry, chattering girls, their cheeks coloured by the wind

beneath the dark fur of their hats, or a line of gaudy capped, thickset

students, to pass him by, unbroken; and it seemed to him that he was

more frequently off the pavement than on it. He began to feel

disconsolate among these jovial people, who were hastening forward,

with such spirit, to some end, and he had not gone far, before he

turned down a side street to be out of their way. Vaguely damped by his

environment, which, with the sun's retreat, had lost its charm, he gave

himself up to his own thoughts, and was soon busily engaged in thinking

over all that had been said by his quondam acquaintance of the

dinner-table, in inventing neatly turned phrases and felicitous

replies. He walked without aim, in a leisurely way down quiet streets,

quickly across big thoroughfares, and paid no attention to where he was

going. The falling darkness made the quaint streets look strangely

alike; it gave them, too, an air of fantastic unreality: the dark old

houses, marshalled in rows on either side, stood as if lost in

contemplation, in the saddening dusk. The lighting of the street-lamps,

which started one by one into existence, and the conflict with the

fading daylight of the uneasily beating flame, that was swept from side

to side in the wind like a woman's hair--these things made his

surroundings seem still shadowier and less real.

He was roused from his reverie by finding himself on what was

apparently the outskirts of the town. With much difficulty he made his

way back, but he was still far from certain of his whereabouts, when an

unexpected turn to the right brought him out on the spacious

AUGUSTUSPLATZ, in front of the New Theatre. He had been in this square

once already, but now its appearance was changed. The big buildings

that flanked it were lit up; the file of droschkes waiting for fares,

under the bare trees, formed a dotted line of lights. A double row of

hanging lamps before the CAFE FRANCAIS made the corner of the

GRIMMAISCHESTRASSE dazzling to the eyes; and now, too, the massive

white theatre was awake as well. Lights shone from all its high

windows, streamed out through the Corinthian columns and low-porched

doorways. Its festive air was inviting, after his twilight wanderings,

and he went across the square to it. Immediately before the theatre,

early corners stood in knots and chatted; programme--and text-vendors

cried and sold their wares; people came hurrying from all directions,

as to a magnet; hastily they ascended the low steps and disappeared

beneath the portico.

He watched until the last late-comer had vanished. Only he was left; he

again was the outsider. And now, as he stood there in the deserted

square, which, a moment before, had been so animated, he had a sudden

sinking of the heart: he was seized by that acute sense of desolation

that lies in wait for one, caught by nightfall, alone in a strange

city. It stirs up a wild longing, not so much for any particular spot

on earth, as for some familiar hand or voice, to take the edge off an

intolerable loneliness.

He turned and walked rapidly back to the small hotel near the railway

station, at which he was staying until he found lodgings. He was tired

out, and for the first time became thoroughly conscious of this; but

the depression that now closed in upon him, was not due to fatigue

alone, and he knew it. In sane moments--such as the present--when

neither excitement nor enthusiasm warped his judgment, he was under no

illusion about himself; and as he strode through the darkness, he

admitted that, all day long, he had been cheating himself in the usual

way. He understood perfectly that it was by no means a matter of merely

stretching out his hand, to pluck what he would, from this tree that

waved before him; he reminded himself with some bitterness that he

stood, an unheralded stranger, before a solidly compact body of things

and people on which he had not yet made any impression. It was the old

story: he played at expecting a ready capitulation of the whole--gods

and men--and, at the same time, was only too well aware of the

laborious process that was his sole means of entry and fellowship.

Again--to instance another of his mental follies--the pains he had been

at to take possession of the town, to make it respond to his forced

interpretation of it! In reality, it had repelled him--yes, he was

chilled to the heart by the aloofness of this foreign town, to which

not a single tie yet bound him.

By the light of a fluttering candle, in the dingy hotel bedroom, he sat

and wrote a letter, briefly announcing his safe arrival. About to close

the envelope, he hesitated, and then, unfolding the sheet of paper

again, added a few lines to what he had written. These cost him more

trouble than all the rest.

ONCE MORE, HEARTY THANKS TO YOU BOTH, MY DEAR PARENTS, FOR LETTING ME

HAVE MY OWN WAY. I HOPE YOU WILL NEVER HAVE REASON TO REGRET IT. ONE

THING, AT LEAST, I CAN PROMISE YOU, AND THAT IS, THAT NOT A DAY OF MY

TIME HERE SHALL BE WASTED OR MISSPENT. YOU HAVE NOT, I KNOW, THE SAME

FAITH IN ME THAT I HAVE MYSELF, AND THIS HAS OFTEN BEEN A BITTER

THOUGHT TO ME. BUT ONLY HAVE PATIENCE. SOMETHING STRONGER THAN MYSELF

DROVE ME TO IT, AND IF I AM TO SUCCEED ANYWHERE, IT WILL BE HERE. AND I

MEAN TO SUCCEED, IF HUMAN WILL CAN DO IT.

He threw himself on the creaking wooden bed and tried to sleep. But his

brain was active, and the street was noisy; people talked late in the

adjoining room, and trod heavily in the one above. It was long after

midnight before the house was still and he fell into an uneasy sleep.

Towards morning, he had a strange dream, from which he wakened in a

cold sweat. Once more he was wandering through the streets, as he had

done the previous day, apparently in search of something he could not

find. But he did not know himself what he sought. All of a sudden, on

turning a corner, he came upon a crowd of people gathered round some

object in the road, and at once said to himself, this is it, here it

is. He could not, however, see what it actually was, for the people,

who were muttering to themselves in angry tones, strove to keep him

back. At all costs, he felt, he must get nearer to the mysterious

thing, and, in a spirit of bravado, he was pushing through the crowd to

reach it, when a great clamour arose; every one sprang back, and fled

wildly, shrieking: "Moloch, Moloch!" He did not know in the least what

it meant, but the very strangeness of the word added to the horror, and

he, too, fled with the rest; fled blindly, desperately, up streets and

down, watched, it seemed to him, from every window by a cold, malignant

eye, but never daring to turn his head, lest he should see the awful

thing behind him; fled on and on, through streets that grew ever vaguer

and more shadowy, till at last his feet would carry him no further: he

sank down, with a loud cry, sank down, down, down, and wakened to find

that he was sitting up in bed, clammy with fear, and that dawn was

stealing in at the sides of the window.

II.

In Maurice Guest, it might be said that the smouldering unrest of two

generations burst into flame. As a young man, his father, then a poor

teacher in a small provincial town, had been a prey to certain dreams

and wishes, which harmonised ill with the conditions of his life. When,

for example, on a mild night, he watched the moon scudding a silvery,

cloud-flaked sky; when white clouds sailed swiftly, and soft spring

breezes were hastening past; when, in a word, all things seemed to be

making for some place, unknown, afar-off, where he was not, then he,

too, was seized with a desire to be moving, to strap on a knapsack and

be gone, to wander through foreign countries, to see strange cities and

hear strange tongues, was unconsciously filled with the desire to

taste, lighthearted, irresponsible, the joys and experiences of the

WANDERJAHRE, before settling down to face the matter-of-factnesss of

life. And as the present continually pushed the realisation of his

dreams into the future, he satisfied the immediate thirst of his soul

by playing the flute, and by breathing into the thin, reedy tones he

drew from it, all that he dreamed of, but would never know. For he

presently came to a place in his life where two paths diverged, and he

was forced to make a choice between them. It was characteristic of the

man that he chose the way of least resistance, and having married, more

or less improvidently, he turned his back on the visions that had

haunted his youth: afterwards, the cares, great and small, that came in

the train of the years, drove them ever further into the background.

Want of sympathy in his home-life blunted the finer edges of his

nature; of a gentle and yielding disposition, he took on the

commonplace colour of his surroundings. After years of unhesitating

toil, it is true, the most pressing material needs died down, but the

dreams and ambitions had died, too, never to come again. And as it is

in the nature of things that no one is less lenient towards romantic

longings than he who has suffered disappointment in them, who has

failed to transmute them into reality, so, in this case, the son's

first tentative leanings to a wider life, met with a more

deeply-rooted, though less decisive, opposition, on the part of the

father than of the mother.

But Maurice Guest had a more tenacious hold on life.

The home in which he grew up, was one of those cheerless, middle-class

homes, across which never passes a breath of the great gladness, the

ideal beauty of life; where thought never swings itself above the

material interests of the day gone, the day to come, and existence

grows as timid and trivial as the petty griefs and pleasures that

intersperse it. The days drip past, one by one, like water from a spout

after a rain-shower; and the dull monotony of them benumbs all

wholesome temerity at its core. Maurice Guest had known days of this

kind. For before the irksomeness of the school-bench was well behind

him, he had begun his training as a teacher, and as soon as he had

learnt how to instil his own half-digested knowledge into the minds of

others, he received a small post in the school at which his father

taught. The latter had, for some time, secretly cherished a wish to

send the boy to study at the neighbouring university, to make a scholar

of his eldest son; but the longer he waited, the more unfavourable did

circumstances seem, and the idea finally died before it was born.

Maurice Guest looked back on the four years he had just come through,

with bitterness; and it was only later, when he was engrossed heart and

soul in congenial work, that he began to recognise, and be vaguely

grateful for, the spirit of order with which they had familiarised him.

At first, he could not recall them without an aversion that was almost

physical: this machine-like regularity, which, in its disregard of mood

and feeling, had something of a divine callousness to human stirrings;

the jarring contact with automaton-like people; his inadequacy and

distaste for a task that grew day by day more painful. His own

knowledge was so hesitating, so uncertain, too slight for

self-confidence, just too much and too fresh to allow him to generalise

with the unthinking assurance that was demanded of him. Yet had anyone,

he asked himself, more obstacles to overcome than he, in his efforts to

set himself free? This silent, undemonstrative father, who surrounded

himself with an unscalable wall of indifference; this hard-faced,

careworn mother, about whose mouth the years had traced deep lines, and

for whom, in the course of a single-handed battle with life, the true

reality had come to be success or failure in the struggle for bread.

What was art to them but an empty name, a pastime for the drones and

idlers of existence? How could he set up his ambitions before them, to

be bowled over like so many ninepins? When, at length, after much

heartburning and conscientious scrupling, he was mastered by a

healthier spirit of self-assertion, which made him rebel against the

uselessness of the conflict, and doggedly resolve to put an end to it,

he was only enabled to stand firm by summoning to his aid all the

strengthening egoism, which is latent in every more or less artistic

nature. To the mother, in her honest narrowness, the son's choice of a

calling which she held to be unfitting, was something of a tragedy. She

allowed no item of her duty to escape her, and moved about the house as

usual, sternly observant of her daily task, but her lips were

compressed to a thin line, and her face reflected the anger that burnt

in her heart, too deep for speech. In the months that followed, Maurice

learnt that the censure hardest to meet is that which is never put into

words, which refuses to argue or discuss: he chafed inwardly against

the unspoken opposition that will not come out to be grappled with, and

overthrown. And, as he was only too keenly aware, there was more to be

faced than a mere determined aversion to the independence with which he

had struck out: there was, in the first place, a pardonably human sense

of aggrievedness that the eldest-born should cross their plans and

wishes; that, after the year-long care and thought they had bestowed on

him, he should demand fresh efforts from them; and, again, most

harassing of all and most invulnerable, such an entire want of faith in

the powers he was yearning to test--the prophet's lot in the mean

blindness of the family--that, at times, it threatened to shake his

hard-won faith in himself.--But before the winter drew to a close he

was away.

Away!--to go out into the world and be a musician--that was his longing

and his dream. And he never came to quite an honest understanding with

himself on this point, for desire and dream were interwoven in his

mind; he could not separate the one from the other. But when he weighed

them, and allowed them to rise up and take shape before him, it was

invariably in this order that they did so. In reality, although he

himself was but vaguely conscious of the fact, it was to some extent as

means to an end, that, when his eyes had been opened to its presence,

he clutched--like a drowning man who seizes upon a spar--clutched and

held fast to his talent. But the necessary insight into his powers had

first to be gained, for it was not one of those talents which, from the

beginning, strut their little world with the assurance of the peacock.

He was, it is true, gifted with an instinctive feeling for the value

and significance of tones--as a child he sang by ear in a small, sweet

voice, which gained him the only notice he received at school, and he

easily picked out his notes, and taught himself little pieces, on the

old-fashioned, silk-faced piano, which had belonged to his mother as a

girl, and at which, in the early days of her marriage, she had sung in

a high, shrill voice, the sentimental songs of her youth. But here, for

want of incentive, matters remained; Maurice was kept close at his

school-books, and, boylike, he had no ambition to distinguish himself

in a field so different from that in which his comrades won their

spurs. It was only when, with the end of his schooldays in sight, he

was putting away childish things, that he seriously turned his

attention to the piano and his hands. They were those of the pianist,

broad, strong and supple, and the new occupation soon engrossed him

deeply; he gave up all his spare time to it, and, in a few months,

attained so creditable a proficiency, that he went through a course of

instruction with a local teacher of music, who, scenting talent,

dismissed preliminaries with the assurance of his kind, and initiated

his pupil into all that is false and meretricious in the literature of

the piano--the cheaply pathetic, the tinsel of transcription, the

titillating melancholy of Slavonic dance-music--to leave him, but for

an increased agility of finger, not a whit further forward than he had

found him. Then followed months when the phantom of discontent stalked

large through Maurice's life, grew, indeed, day by day more tangible,

more easily defined; for there came the long, restless summer evenings,

when it seemed as if a tranquil darkness would never fall and bar off

the distant, the unattainable; and as he followed some flat, white

country road, that was lost to sight on the horizon as a tapering line,

or looked out across a stretch of low, luxuriant meadows, the very

placidity of which made heart and blood throb quicker, in a sense of

opposition: then the desire to have finished with the life he knew,

grew almost intolerable, and only a spark was needed to set his resolve

ablaze.

It was one evening when the summer had already dragged itself to a

close, that Maurice walked through a drizzling rain to the neighbouring

cathedral town, to attend a performance of ELIJAH. It was the first

important musical experience of his life, and, carried away by the

volumes of sound, he repressed his agitation so ill, that it became

apparent to his neighbour, a small, wizened, old man, who was leaning

forward, his hands hanging between his knees and his eyes fixed on the

floor, alternately shaking and nodding his head. In the interval

between the parts, they exchanged a few words, halting, excited on

Maurice's part, interrogative on his companion's; when the performance

was over, they walked a part of the way together, and found so much to

say, that often, after this, when his week's work was behind him,

Maurice would cover the intervening miles for the pleasure of a few

hours' conversation with this new friend. In a small, dark room, the

air of which was saturated with tobacco-smoke, he learned, by degrees,

the story of the old musician's life: how, some thirty years

previously, he had drifted into the midst of this provincial

population, where he found it easy to earn enough for his needs, and

where his position was below that of a dancing-master; but how, long

ago, in his youth--that youth of which he spoke with a far-away tone in

his voice, and at which he seemed to be looking out as at a fading

shore--it had been his intention to perfect himself as a pianist. Life

had been against him; when, the resolve was strongest, poverty and

ill-heath kept him down, and since then, with the years that passed, he

had come to see that his place would only have been among the multitude

of little talents, whose destiny it is to imitate and vulgarise the

strivings of genius, to swell the over-huge mass of mediocrity. And so,

he had chosen that his life should be a failure--a failure, that is, in

the eyes of the world; for himself, he judged otherwise. The truth that

could be extracted from words was such a fluctuating, relative truth.

Failure! success!--what WAS success, but a clinging fast, unabashed by

smile or neglect, to that better part in art, in one's self, that

cannot be taken away?--never for a thought's space being untrue to the

ideal each one of us bears in his breast; never yielding jot or tittle

to the world's opinion. That was what it meant, and he who was proudly

conscious of having succeeded thus, could well afford to regard the

lives of others as half-finished and imperfect; he alone was at one

with himself, his life alone was a harmonious whole.

To Maurice Guest, all this mattered little or not at all; it was merely

the unavoidable introduction. The chief thing was that the old man had

known the world which Maurice so desired to know; he had seen life, had

lived much of his youth in foreign lands, and had the conversation been

skilfully set agoing in this direction, he would lay a wrinkled hand on

his listener's shoulder, and tell him of this shadowy past, with short

hoarse chuckles of pleasure and reminiscence, which invariably ended in

a cough. He painted it in vivid colours, and with the unconscious

heightening of effect that comes natural to one who looks back upon a

happy past, from which the countless pricks and stings that make up

reality have faded, leaving in their place a sense of dreamy, unreal

brightness, like that of sunset upon distant hills. He told him of

Germany, and the gay, careless years he had spent there, working at his

art, years of inspiriting, untrammelled progress; told him of famous

musicians he had seen and known, of great theatre performances at which

he had assisted, of stirring PREMIERES, long since forgotten, of

burning youthful enthusiasms, of nights sleepless with holy excitement,

and days of fruitful, meditative idleness. Under the spell of these

reminiscences, he seemed to come into touch again with life, and his

eyes lit with a spark of the old fire. At moments, he forgot his

companion altogether, and gazed long and silently before him, nodding

and smiling to himself at the memories he had stirred up in his brain,

memories of things that had long ceased to be, of people who had long

been quiet and unassertive beneath their handful of earth, but for whom

alone, the brave, fair world had once seemed to exist. Then he would

lose himself among strange names, in vague histories of those who had

borne these names, and of what they had become in their subsequent

journeyings towards the light, for which they had set out, side by

side, with so much ardour (and oftenest what he had to tell was a

modest mediocrity); but the greater number of them had lost sight one

of the other; the most inseparable friends had, once parted, soon

forgotten. And the bluish smoke sent upwards as he talked, in clouds

and spirals that mounted rapidly and vanished, seemed to Maurice

symbolic of the brief and shadowy lives that were unrolled before him.

But, after all this, when the lights came, the piano was opened, and

then, for an hour or two, the world was forgotten in a different way.

It was here that the chief landmarks of music emerged from the mists in

which, for Maurice, they had hitherto been enveloped; here he learned

that Bach and Beethoven were giants, and made uncertain efforts at

appreciation; learnt that Gluck was a great composer, Mozart a genius

of many parts, Mendelssohn the direct successor in this line of kings.

Sonatas, symphonies, operas, were hammered out with tremendous force

and precision on the harsh, scrupulously tuned piano; and all were

dominated alike by the hoarse voice of the old man, who never wavered,

never faltered, but sang from beginning to end with all his might. Each

one of the pleasant hours spent in this new world helped to deepen

Maurice's resolution to free himself while there was yet time; each one

gave more clearness and precision to his somewhat formless desires;

for, in all that concerned his art, the nameless old musician hated his

native land, with the hatred of the bigot for those who are hostile or

indifferent to his faith.

With a long and hot-chased goal in sight, a goal towards which our

hearts, in joyous eagerness, have already leapt out, it is astonishing

how easy it becomes to make light of the last, monotonous stretch of

road that remains to be travelled. Is there not, just beyond, a

resting-place?--and cool, green shadows? Events and circumstances which

had hitherto loomed forth gigantic, threatening to crush, now appeared

to Maurice trivial and of little moment; he saw them in other

proportions now, for it seemed to him that he was no longer in their

midst: he stood above them and overlooked them, and, with his eyes

fixed upon a starry future, he joyfully prepared himself for his new

life. What is more, those around him helped him to this altered view of

things. For as the present marched steadily upon the future, devouring

as it went; as the departure this future contained took on the shape of

a fact, the countless details of which called for attention, it began

to be accepted as even the most unpalatable facts in the long run

usually are, with an ungracious resignation in face of the inevitable.

Thus, with all his ardour to be gone, Maurice Guest came to see the

last stage of his home-life almost in a bright light, and even with a

touch of melancholy, as something that was fast slipping from him,

never to be there in all its entirety, exactly as it now was, again:

the last calm hour of respite before he plunged into the triumphs, but

also into the tossings and agitations of the future.

III.

It was April, and a day such as April will sometimes bring: one of

those days when the air is full of a new, mysterious fragrance, when

the sunshine lies like a flood upon the earth, and high clouds hang

motionless in the far-distant blue--a day at the very heels of which it

would seem that summer was lurking. Maurice Guest stood at his window,

both sides of which were flung open, drinking in the warm air, and

gazing absently up at the stretch of sky, against which the dark

roof-lines of the houses opposite stood out abruptly. His hands were in

his pockets, and, to a light beat of the foot, he hummed softly to

himself, but what, he could not have told: whether some fragment of

melody that had lingered in a niche of his brain and now came to his

lips, or whether a mere audible expression of his mood. The strong,

unreal sun of the afternoon was just beginning to reach the house; it

slanted in, golden, by the side of the window, and threw on the wall

above the piano, a single long bar of light.

He leaned over and looked down into the street far below--still no one

there! But it was only half-past four. He stretched himself long and

luxuriously, as if, by doing so, he would get rid of a restlessness

which arose from repressed physical energy, and also from an impatience

to be more keenly conscious of life, to feel it, as it were, quicken in

him, not unakin to that passionate impulse towards perfection, which,

out-of-doors, was urging on the sap and loosening firm green buds: he

had a day's imprisonment behind him, and all spring's magic was at work

to ferment his blood. How small and close the room was! He leaned out

on the sill, as far out as he could, in the sun. It was shining full

down the street now, gilding the canal-like river at the foot, and

throwing over the tall, dingy houses on the opposite side, a tawdry

brightness, which, unlike that of the morning with its suggestion of

dewy shade, only served to bring out the shabbiness of broken plaster

and paintless window; a shamefaced yet aggressive shabbiness, where

high-arched doorways and wide entries spoke to better days, and also to

a subsequent decay, now openly admitted in the little placards which

dotted them here and there, bearing the bold-typed words GARCON LOGIS,

and dangling bravely yellow from the windows of the cheap lodgings they

proclaimed vacant. It was very still; the hoarse voice of a

fruit-seller crying his wares in the adjoining streets, was to be heard

at intervals, but each time less distinctly, and from the distance came

the faint tones of a single piano. How different it was in the morning!

Then, if, pausing a moment from his work, he opened the window and

leaned out for a brief refreshment, what a delightful confusion of

sounds met his ear! Pianos rolled noisily up and down, ploughing one

through the other, beating one against the other, key to key, rhythm to

rhythm, each in a clamorous despair at being unable to raise its voice

above the rest, at having to form part of this jumble of discord: some

so near at hand or so directly opposite that, none the less, it was

occasionally possible to follow them through the persistent

reiterations of a fugue, or through some brilliant glancing ETUDE, the

notes of which flew off like sparks; others, further away, of which

were audible only the convulsive treble outbursts and the toneless

rumblings of the bass, now and then cut shrilly through by the piercing

sharpness of a violin, now and then, at quieter moments, borne up and

accompanied by the deep, guttural tones of a neighbouring violoncello.

This was always discovered at work upon scales, uncertain, hesitating

scales on the lower strings, and, heard suddenly, after the other

instruments' genial hubbub, it sounded like some inarticulate animal

making uncouth attempts at expression. At rare intervals there came a

lull, and then, before all burst forth again together, or fell in, one

by one, a single piano or the violin would, like a solo voice in a

symphony, bear the whole burden; or if the wind were in the west, it

would sometimes carry over with it, from the woods on the left, the

mournful notes of a French horn, which some unskilful player had gone

out to practise.

This was that new world of which he was now a part--into which he had

been so auspiciously received.

Yes, the beginning and the thousand petty disquiets that go with

beginnings, were behind him; he had made a start, and he believed a

good one--thanks to Dove. He was really grateful to Dove. A chance

acquaintance, formed on one of those early days when he loitered, timid

and unsure, about the BUREAU of the Conservatorium, Dove had taken him

up with what struck even the grateful new-comer as extraordinary

good-nature, going deliberately out of his way to be of service to him,

meeting him at every turn with assistance and advice. It was Dove who

had helped him over the embarrassments of the examination; it was

through Dove's influence that he had obtained a private interview with

Schwarz, and, in Dove's opinion, Schwarz was the only master in Leipzig

under whom it was worth while to study; the only one who could be

relied on to give the exhaustive TECHNIQUE that was indispensable,

without, in the process, destroying what was of infinitely more

account, the individuality, the TEMPERAMENT of the student. This and

more, Dove set forth at some length in their conversations; then,

warming to his work, he would go further: would go on to speak of

phrasings and interpretations; of an artistic use of the pedals, and

the legitimate participation of the emotions; of the confines of

absolute music as touched in the Ninth Symphony: would refer

incidentally to Schopenhauer and make Wagner his authority, using terms

that were new to his hearer, and, now and then, by way of emphasis,

bringing his palm down flat and noiselessly upon the table.--It had not

taken them long to become friends; fellow-countrymen, of the same age,

with similar aims and interests, they had soon slipped into one of the

easy-going friendships of youth.

A quarter to five! As the strokes from the neighbouring church--clock

died away, the melody of Siegfried's horn was whistled up from the

street, and looking over, Maurice saw his friend. He seized his music

and went hastily down the four flights of stairs.

They crossed the river and came to newer streets. It was delightful

out-of-doors. A light breeze met them as they turned, and a few ragged,

fleecy clouds that it was driving up, only made the sky seem bluer, The

two young men walked leisurely, laughing and talking rather loudly.

Maurice Guest had already, in dress and bearing, taken on a touch of

musicianly disorder, but Dove's lengthier residence had left no trace

upon him; he might have stepped that day from the streets of the

provincial English town to which he belonged. His well brushed clothes

sat with an easy inelegance, his tie was small, his linen clean, and

the only concession he made to his surroundings, the broad-brimmed,

soft felt hat, looked oddly out of place on his close-cut hair. He

carried himself erectly, swinging a little on his hips.

As they went, he passed in review the important items of the day:

so-and-so had strained a muscle, so-and-so had spoilt a second piano.

But his particular interest centred upon that evening's

ABENDUNTERHALTUNG. A man named Schilsky, whom it was no exaggeration to

call their finest, very finest violinist was to play Vieuxtemps'

Concerto in D. Dove all but smacked his lips as he spoke of it. In

reply to a query from Maurice, he declared with vehemence that this

Schilsky was a genius. Although so great a violinist, he could play

almost every other instrument with case; his memory had become a

by-word; his compositions were already famous. At the present moment,

he was said to be at work upon a symphonic poem, having for its base a

new and extraordinary book, half poetry, half philosophy, a book which

he, Dove, could confidently assert, would effect a revolution in human

thought, but of which, just at the minute, he was unable to remember

the name. Infected by his friend's enthusiasm, Maurice here recalled

having, only the day before, met some one who answered to Dove's

description: the genial Pole had been storming up the steps of the

Conservatorium, two at a time, with wild, affrighted eyes, and a halo

of dishevelled auburn hair.--Dove made no doubt that he had been seized

with a sudden inspiration.

Gewandhaus and Conservatorium lay close together, in a new quarter of

the town. The Conservatorium, a handsome, stone-faced building, three

lofty storeys high, was just now all the more imposing in appearance as

it stood alone in an unfinished street-block, and as, opposite,

hoardings still shut in all that had yet been raised of the great

library, which would eventually overshadow it. The severe plainness of

its long front, with the unbroken lines of windows, did not fail to

impress the unused beholder, who had not for very long gone daily out

and in; it suggested to him the earnest, unswerving efforts, imperative

on his pursuit of the ideal; an ideal which, to many, was as it were

personified by the concert-house in the adjoining square: it was

hither, towards this clear-limned goal, that bore him, like a magic

carpet, the young enthusiast's most ambitious dream.--But in the life

that swarmed about the Conservatorium, there was nothing of a tedious

austerity. It was one of the briskest times of day, and the short

street and the steps of the building were alive with young people of

both sexes. Young men sauntered to and from the cafe at the corner, or

stood gesticulating in animated groups. All alike were conspicuous for

a rather wilful slovenliness, for smooth faces and bushy hair, while

the numerous girls, with whom they paused to laugh and trifle, were,

for the most part, showy in dress and loudly vivacious in manner. On

the kerbstone, a knot of the latter, tittering among themselves, shot

furtive glances at Dove and Maurice as they passed. Here, a pretty,

laughing face was the centre of a little circle; there, a bevy of girls

clustered about a young man, who, his hands in his pockets, leaned

carelessly against the door-arch; and again, another, plump and much

befeathered, with a string of large pearlbeads round her fat, white

neck, had isolated herself from the rest, to take up, on the steps, a

more favourable stand. A master who went by, a small, jovial man in a

big hat, had a word for all the girls, even a chuck of the chin for one

unusually saucy face. Inside, classes were filing out of the various

rooms, other classes were going in; there was a noisy flocking up and

down the broad, central staircase, a crowding about the notice-board, a

going and coming in the long, stone corridors. The concert-hall was

being lighted.

Maurice slowly made his way through the midst of all these people,

while Dove loitered, or stepped out of hearing, with one friend after

another. In a side corridor, off which, cell like, opened a line of

rooms, they pushed a pair of doubledoors, and went in to take their

lesson.

The room they entered was light and high, and contained, besides a

couple of grand pianos, a small table and a row of wooden chairs.

Schwarz stood with his back to the window, biting his nails. He was a

short, thickset man, with keen eyes, and a hard, prominent mouth, which

was rather emphasised than concealed, by the fair, scanty tuft of hair

that hung from his chin. Upon the two new-comers, he bent a cold,

deliberate gaze, which, for some instants, he allowed to rest

chillingly on them, then as deliberately withdrew, having--so at least

it seemed to those who were its object--having, without the tremor of

an eyelid, scanned them like an open page: it was the look,

impenetrable, all-seeing, of the physician for his patient. At the

piano, a young man was playing the Waldstein Sonata. So intent was he

on what he was doing, that his head all but touched the music standing

open before him, while his body, bent thus double, swayed vigorously

from side to side. His face was crimson, and on his forehead stood out

beads of perspiration. He had no cuffs on, and his sleeves were a

little turned back. The movement at an end, he paused, and drawing a

soiled handkerchief from his pocket, passed it rapidly over neck and

brow. In the ADAGIO which followed, he displayed an extreme delicacy of

touch--not, however, but what this also cost him some exertion, for,

previous to the striking of each faint, soft note, his hand described a

curve in the air, the finger he was about to use, lowered, the others

slightly raised, and there was always a second of something like

suspense, before it finally sank upon the expectant note. But suddenly,

without warning, just as the last, lingering tones were dying to the

close they sought, the ADAGIO slipped over into the limpid gaiety of

the RONDO, and then, there was no time more for premeditation: then his

hands twinkled up and down, joining, crossing, flying asunder, alert

with little sprightly quirks and turns, going ever more nimbly, until

the brook was a river, the allegretto a prestissimo, which flew wildly

to its end amid a shower of dazzling trills.

Schwarz stood grave and apparently impassive; from time to time,

however, when unobserved, he swept the three listeners with a rapid

glance. Maurice Guest was quite carried away; he had never heard

playing like this, and he leaned forward in his seat, and gazed full at

the player, in open admiration. But his neighbour, a pale, thin man,

with one of those engaging and not uncommon faces which, in mould of

feature, in mildness of expression, and still more in the cut of hair

and beard, bear so marked a likeness to the conventional

Christ-portrait: this neighbour looked on with only a languid interest,

which seemed unable to get the upper hand of melancholy thoughts.

Maurice, who believed his feelings shared by all about him, was chilled

by such indifference: he only learned later, after they had become

friends, that nothing roused in Boehmer a real or lasting interest,

save what he, Boehmer, did himself. Dove sat absorbed, as reverent as

if at prayer; but there were also moments when, with his head a little

on one side, he wore an anxious air, as if not fully at one with the

player's rendering; others again, after a passage of peculiar

brilliancy, when he threw at Schwarz a humbly grateful look. While

Schwarz, the sonata over, was busy with his pencil on the margin of the

music, Dove leaned over to Maurice and whispered behind his hand:

"Furst--our best pianist."

Now came the turn of the others, and the master's attention wandered;

he stretched himself, yawned, and sighed aloud, then, in the search for

something he could not find, turned out on the lid of the second piano

the contents of sundry pockets. While Dove played, he wrote as if for

life in a bulky notebook.

Maurice remarked this without being properly conscious of it, so

impressed had he been by the sonata. The exultant beauty of the great

final theme had permeated his every fibre, inciting him, emboldening

him, and, still under the sway of this little elation when his own turn

to play came, he was the richer by it, and acquitted himself with

unusual verve.

As the class was about to leave the room, Schwarz signed to Maurice to

remain behind. For several moments, he paced the floor in silence; then

he stopped suddenly short in front of the young man, and, with legs

apart, one hand at his back, he said in a tone which wavered between

being brutal and confidential, emphasising his words with a series of

smart pencil-raps on his hearer's shoulder:

"Let me tell you something: if I were not of the opinion that you had

ability, I should not detain you this evening. It is no habit of mine,

mark this, to interfere with my pupils. Outside this room, most of them

do not exist for me. In your case, I am making an exception, because

..."--Maurice was here so obviously gratified that the speaker made

haste to substitute: "because I should much like to know how it is that

you come to me in the state you do." And without waiting for a reply:

"For you know nothing, or, let us say, worse than nothing, since what

you do know, you must make it your first concern to forget." He paused,

and the young man's face fell so much that he prolonged the pause, to

enjoy the discomfiture he had produced. "But give me time," he

continued, "adequate time, and I will undertake to make something of

you." He lowered his voice, and the taps became more confidential.

"There is good stuff here; you have talent, great talent, and, as I

have observed to-day, you are not wanting in intelligence. But," and

again his voice grew harsher, his eye more piercing, "understand me, if

you please, no trifling with other studies; let us have no fiddling, no

composing. Who works with me, works for me alone. And a lifetime, I

repeat it, a lifetime, is not long enough to master such an instrument

as this!"

He brought his hand down heavily on the lid of the piano, and glared at

Maurice as if he expected the latter to contradict him. Then, noisily

clearing his throat, he began anew to pace the room.

As Maurice stood waiting for his dismissal, with very varied feelings,

of which, however, a faint pride was uppermost; as he stood waiting,

the door opened, and a girl looked in. She hesitated a moment, then

entered, and going up to Schwarz, asked him something in a low voice.

He nodded an assent, nodded two or three times, and with quite another

face; its hitherto unmoved severity had given way to an indulgent

friendliness. She laid her hat and jacket on the table, and went to the

piano.

Schwarz motioned Maurice to a chair. He sat down almost opposite her.

And now came for him one of those moments in life, which, unlooked-for,

undivined, send before them no promise of being different, in any way,

from the commonplace moments that make up the balance of our days. No

gently graduated steps lead up to them: they are upon us with the

violent abruptness of a streak of lightning, and like this, they, too,

may leave behind them a scarry trace. What such a moment holds within

it, is something which has never existed for us before, something it

has never entered our minds to go out and seek--the corner of earth,

happened on by chance, which comes most near the Wineland of our

dreams; the page, idly perhaps begun, which brings us a new god; the

face of the woman who is to be our fate--but, whatever it may be, let

it once exist for us, and the soul responds forthwith, catching in

blind haste at the dimly missed ideal.

For one instant Maurice Guest had looked at the girl before him with

unconcern, but the next it was with an intentness that soon became

intensity, and feverishly grew, until he could not tear his eyes away.

The beauty, whose spell thus bound him, was of that subtle kind which

leaves many a one cold, but, as if just for this reason, is almost

always fateful for those who feel its charm: at them is lanced its

accumulated force. The face was far from faultless; there was no

regularity of feature, no perfection of line, nor was there more than a

touch of the sweet girlish freshness that gladdens like a morning in

May. The features, save for a peremptory turn of mouth and chin, were

unremarkable, and the expression was distant, unchanging ... but what

was that to him? This deep white skin, the purity of which was only

broken by the pale red of the lips; this dull black hair, which lay

back from the low brow in such wonderful curves, and seemed, of itself,

to fall into the loose knot on the neck--there was something romantic,

exotic about her, which was unlike anything he had ever seen: she made

him think of a rare, hothouse flower; some scentless, tropical flower,

with stiff, waxen petals. And then her eyes! So profound was their

darkness that, when they threw off their covering of heavy lid, it

seemed to his excited fancy as if they must scorch what they rested on;

they looked out from the depths of their setting like those of a wild

beast crouched within a cavern; they lit up about them like stars, and

when they fell, they went out like stars, and her face took on the

pallor of early dawn.

She was playing from memory. She gazed straight before her with

far-away eyes, which only sometimes looked down at her hands, to aid

them in a difficult passage. At her belt, she wore a costly yellow

rose, and as she once leaned towards the treble, where both hands were

at work close together, it fell to the floor. Maurice started forward,

and picking it up, laid it on the piano; beneath the gaslight, it sank

a shadowy gold image in the mirror-like surface. As yet she had paid no

heed to him, but, at this, she turned her head, and, still continuing

to play, let her eyes rest absently on him.

They sank their eyes in each other's. A thrill ran through Maurice, a

quick, sharp thrill, which no sensation of his later life outdid in

keenness and which, on looking back, he could always feel afresh. The

colour rose to his face and his heart beat audibly, but he did not

lower his eyes, and for not doing so, seemed to himself infinitely

bold. A host of confused feelings bore down upon him, well-nigh

blotting out the light; but, in a twinkling, all were swallowed up in

an overpowering sense of gratitude, in a large, vague, happy

thankfulness, which touched him almost to the point of tears. As it

swelled through him and possessed him, he yearned to pour it forth, to

make an offering of this gratefulness--fine tangle of her beauty and

his own glad mood--and, by sustaining her look, he seemed to lay the

offering at her feet. Nor would any tongue have persuaded him that she

did not understand. The few seconds were eternities: when she turned

away it was as if untold hours had passed over him in a body, like a

flight of birds; as if a sudden gulf had gaped between where he now was

and where he had previously stood.

Dismissed curtly, with a word, he hung about the corridor in the hope

of seeing her again; but the piano went on and on, unceasingly. Here,

after some time, he was found by Dove, who carried him off with loud

expressions of surprise.

The concert was more than half over. The main part of the hall was

brightly lit and full of people: from behind, one looked across a sea

of heads. On the platform at the other end, a girl in red was playing a

sonata; a master sat by her side, and leant forward, at regular

intervals, to turn the leaves of the music. Dove and Maurice remained

standing at the back, under the gallery, among a portion of the

audience which shifted continuously: those about them wandered in and

out of the hall at pleasure, now inside, head in hand, critically

intent, now out in the vestibule, stretching their legs, lounging in

easy chat. In the pause that followed the sonata, Dove went towards the

front, to join some ladies who beckoned him, and, while some one sang a

noisy aria, Maurice gave himself up to his own thoughts. They all led

to the same point: how he should contrive to see her again, how he

should learn her name, and, beside them, everything else seemed remote,

unreal; he saw the people next him as if from a distance. But in a wait

that was longer than usual, he was awakened to his surroundings: a stir

ran over the audience, like a gust of wind over still water; the heads

in the seats before him inclined one to another, wagged and nodded;

there was a gentle buzz of voices. Behind him, the doors opened and

shut, letting in all who were outside: they pressed forward

expectantly. On his left, a row of girls tried to start a round of

applause and tittered nervously at their failure. Schilsky had come

down the platform and commenced tuning. He bent his long, thin body as

he pressed his violin to his knee, and his reddish hair fell over his

face. The accompanist, his hands on the keys, waited for the signal to

begin.

Maurice drew a deep breath of anticipation. But the first shrill, sweet

notes had hardly cut the silence, when, the door opening once more,

some one entered and pushed through the standing crowd. He looked

round, uneasy at the disturbance, and found that it was she: what is

more, she came up to his very side. He turned away so hastily that he

touched her arm, causing it to yield a little, and some moments went by

before he ventured to look again. When he did, in some tremor, he saw

that, without fear of discovery, he might look as long or as often as

he chose. She was listening to the player with the raptness of a

painted saint: her whole face listened, the tightened lips, the open

nostrils, the wide, vigilant eyes. Maurice, lost in her presence, grew

dizzy with the scent of her hair--that indefinable odour, which has

something of the raciness in it of new-turned earth--and foolish wishes

arose and jostled one another in his mind: he would have liked to

plunge both hands into the dark, luxuriant mass; still better,

cautiously to draw his palm down this whitest skin, which, seen so

near, had a faint, satin-like sheen. The mere imagining of it set him

throbbing, and the excitement in his blood was heightened by the

sensuous melancholy of the violin, which, just beyond the pale of his

consciousness, throbbed and languished with him under the masterful bow.

Shortly before the end of the concerto, she turned and made her way

out. Maurice let a few seconds elapse, then followed. But the long

white corridors stretched empty before him; there was no trace of her

to be seen. As he was peering about, in places that were strange to

him, a tumult of applause shook the hall, the doors flew open and the

audience poured out.

Dove had joined other friends, and a number of them left the building

together; everyone spoke loudly and at once. But soon Maurice and Dove

outstepped their companions, for these came to words over the means

used by Schilsky to mount, with bravour, a certain gaudy scale of

octaves, and, at every second pace, they stopped, and wheeled round

with eloquent gesture. In their presence Dove had said little; now he

gave rein to his feelings: his honest face glowed with enthusiasm, the

names of renowned players ran off his lips like beads off a string,

and, in predicting Schilsky a career still more brilliant, his voice

grew husky with emotion.

Maurice listened unmoved to his friend's outpouring, and the first time

Dove stopped for breath, went straight for the matter which, in his

eyes, had dwarfed all others. So eager was he to learn something of

her, that he even made shift to describe her; his attempt fell out

lamely, and a second later he could have bitten off his tongue.

Dove had only half an ear for him.

"Eh? What? What do you say?" he asked as Maurice paused; but his

thoughts were plainly elsewhere. This fact is, just at this moment, he

was intent on watching some ladies: were they going to notice him or

not? The bow made and returned, he brought his mind back to Maurice

with a great show of interest.

Here, however, they all turned in to Seyffert's Cafe and, seating

themselves at a long, narrow table, waited for Schilsky, whom they

intended to fete. But minutes passed, a quarter, then half of an hour,

and still he did not come. To while the time, his playing of the

concerto was roundly commented and discussed. There was none of the ten

or twelve young men but had the complete jargon of the craft at his

finger-tips; not one, too, but was rancorous and admiring in a breath,

now detecting flaws as many as motes in a beam, now heaping praise. The

spirited talk, flying thus helter-skelter through the gamut of opinion,

went forward chiefly in German, which the foreigners of the party spoke

with various accents, but glibly enough; only now and then did one of

them spring over to his mother-tongue, to fetch a racy idiom or point a

joke.

Not having heard a note of Schilsky's playing, Maurice did not trust

himself to say much, and so was free to observe his right-hand

neighbour, a young man who had entered late, and taken a vacant chair

beside him. To the others present, the new-comer paid no heed, to

Maurice he murmured an absent greeting, and then, having called for

beer and emptied his glass at a draught, he appeared mentally to return

whence he had come, or to engage without delay in some urgent train of

thought. His movements were noiseless, but startlingly abrupt. Thus,

after sitting quiet for a time, his head in his hands, he flung back in

his seat with a sort of wildness, and began to stare fixedly at the

ceiling. His face was one of those, which, as by a mystery, preserve

the innocent beauty of their childhood, long after childhood is a thing

of the past: delicate as the rosy lining of a great sea-shell was the

colour that spread from below the forked blue veins of the temples, and

it paled and came again as readily as a girl's. Girlish, too, were the

limpid eyes, which, but for a trick of dropping unexpectedly, seemed

always to be gazing, in thoughtful surprise, at something that was

visible to them alone. As to the small, frail body, it existed only for

sake of the hands: narrow hands, with long, fleshless fingers, nervous

hands, that were never still.

All at once, in a momentary lull, he leant towards Maurice, and,

without even looking up, asked the latter if he could recall the

opening bars of the prelude to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. If so, there was a

certain point he would like to lay before him.

"You see, it's this way, old fellow," he said confidentially. "I've

come to the conclusion that if, at the end of the third bar, Wagner

had----"

"Throw him out, throw him out!" cried an American who was sitting

opposite them. "You might as well try to stop a nigger in heat as

Krafft on Wagner."

"That's so," said another American named Ford, who, on arriving, had

not been quite sober, and now, after a few glasses of beer, was

exceedingly tipsy. "That's so. As I've always said, it's a disgrace to

the township, a disgrace, sir. Ought to be put down. Why don't he write

them himself?"

From the depths of his brown study, Krafft looked vaguely at the

speakers, and checked, but not discomposed, drew out a notebook and

jotted down an idea.

Meanwhile, at the far end of the table, Boehmer and a Russian violinist

still harped upon the original string. And, having worked out Schilsky,

they passed on to Zeppelin, his master, and the Russian, who was not

Zeppelin's pupil, set to showing with vehemence that his "method" was a

worthless one. He was barely started when a wiry American, in a high,

grating voice, called Schilsky a wretched fool: why had he not gone to

Berlin at Easter, as he had planned, instead of dawdling on here where

he had no more to gain? At this, several of the young men laughed and

looked significant. Furst--he had proved to be a jolly little man, who,

with unbuttoned vest, absorbed large quantities of beer and perspired

freely--Furst alone was of the opinion, which he expressed forcibly, in

his hearty Saxon dialect, that had Schilsky left Leipzig at this

particular time, he would have been a fool indeed.

"Look here, boys," he cried, pounding the table to get attention.

"That's all very well, but he must have an eye to the practical side of

things, too----"

"DER BIEDERE SACHSE HOCH!" threw in Boehmer, who was Prussian, and of a

more ideal cast of mind.

"--and a chance such as this, he will certainly never have again. A

hundred thousand marks, if a pfennig, and a face to turn after in the

street! No, he is a confounded deal wiser to stay here and make sure of

her, for that sort is as slippery as an eel."

"Krafft can tell us; he let her go; is she?--is it true?" shouted half

a dozen.

Krafft looked up and winked. His reply was so gross and so witty that

there was a very howl of mirth.

"KRAFFT HOCH, HOCH KRAFFT!" they cried, and roared again, until the

proprietor, a mild, round-faced man, who was loath to meddle with his

best customers, advanced to the middle of the floor, where he stood

smiling uneasily and rubbing his hands.

But it was growing late.

"Why the devil doesn't he come?" yawned Boehmer.

"Perhaps," said Dove, mouthing deliberately as if he had a good thing

on his tongue; perhaps, by now, he is safe in the arms of----"

"Jesus or Morpheus?" asked a cockney 'cellist.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus!" sang the tipsy pianist; but he was outsung

by Krafft, who, rising from his seat, gave with dramatic gesture:

O sink' hernieder,

Nacht der Liebe,

gieb Vergessen,

dass ich lebe ...

After this, with much laughter and ado, they broke up to seek another

cafe in the heart of the town, where the absinthe was good and the

billiard-table better, two of his friends supporting Ford, who was

testily debating with himself why a composer should compose his own

works. At the first corner, Maurice whispered a word to Dove, and,

unnoticed by the rest, slipped away. For some time, he heard the sound

of their voices down the quiet street. A member of the group, in

defiance of the night, began to sing; and then, just as one bird is

provoked by another, rose a clear, sweet voice he recognised as

Krafft's, in a song the refrain of which was sung by all:

Give me the Rose of Sharon,

And a bottle of Cyprus wine!

What followed was confused, indistinct, but over and over again he

heard:

... the Rose of Sharon,

... a bottle of Cyprus wine!

until that, too, was lost in the distance.

When he reached his room, he did not light the lamp, but crossed to the

window and stood looking out into the darkness. The day's impressions,

motley as the changes of a kaleidoscope, seethed in his brain,

clamoured to be recalled and set in order; but he kept them back; he

could not face the task. He felt averse to any mental effort, in need

of a repose as absolute as the very essence of silence itself. The sky

was overcast; a wayward breeze blew coolly in upon him and refreshed

him; a few single raindrops fell. In the air a gentle melancholy was

abroad, and, as he stood there, wax for any passing mood, it descended

on him and enveloped him. He gave himself up to it, unresistingly,

allowed himself to toy with it, to sink beneath it. Just, however, as

he was sinking, sinking, he was roused, suddenly, as from sleep, by the

vivid presentiment that something was about to happen to him: it seemed

as if an important event were looming in the near distance, ready to

burst in upon his life, and not only instantly, but with a monstrous

crash of sound. His pulses beat more quickly, his nerves stretched,

like bows. But it was very still; everything around him slept, and the

streets were deserted.

A keen sense of desolation came over him; never, in his life, had he

felt so utterly alone. In all this great city that spread, ocean-like,

around him, not a heart was the lighter for his being there. Oh, to

have some one beside him!--some one who would talk soothingly to him,

of shadowy, far-off things, or, still better, be merely a sympathetic

presence. He passed rapidly in review people he had known, saw their

faces and heard their voices, but not one of them would do. No, he

wanted a friend, the friend he had often dreamed of, whose thoughts

would be his thoughts, with whom there would be no need of speech. Then

his longing swelled, grew fiercer and more undefined, and a sudden

burst of energy convulsed him and struggled to find vent. His breath

came hard, and he stretched his arms out into the night, uncertainly,

as if to grasp something he did not see; but they fell to his side

again. He would have liked to sweep through the air, to feel the wind

rushing dizzily through him; or to be set down before some feat that

demanded the strength of a Titan--anything, no matter what, to be rid

of the fever in his veins. But it beset him, again and again, only by

slow degrees weakening and dying away.

A bitter moisture sprang to his eyes. Leaning his head on his arms, he

endeavoured to call up her face. But it was of no use, though he

strained every nerve; for some time he could see only the rose that had

lain beside her on the piano, and in the troubled image that at last

crowned his patience, her eyes looked out, like jewels, from a setting

of golden petals.

Lying wakeful in the darkness, he saw them more clearly. Now, though,

they had a bluish light, were like moons, moons that burnt. If he lit

the lamp and tried to read, they got between him and the book, and

danced up and down the pages, with jerky, clockwork movements, like

stage fireflies. He put the light out, and lay staring vacantly at the

pale square of the window. And then, just when he was least expecting

it, he saw the whole face, so close to him and so distinctly, that he

started up on his elbow; and in the second or two it remained--a

Medusa-face, opaquely white, with deep, unfathomable eyes--he

recognised, with a shock, that his peace of mind was gone; that the

sudden experience of a few hours back had given his life new meaning;

that something had happened to him which could not be undone; in other

words--with an incredulous gasp at his own folly--that he was head over

ears in love.

Through the uneasy sleep into which he ultimately fell, she, and the

yellow rose, and the Rose of Sharon--a giant flower, with monstrous

crimson petals--passed and repassed, in one of those glorious tangles,

which no dreamer has ever unravelled.

When he wakened, it was broad daylight, and things wore a different

aspect. Not that his impression of the night had faded, but it was

forced to retire behind the hard, clear affairs of the morning. He got

up, full of vigour, impatient to be at work, and having breakfasted,

sat down at the piano, where he remained until his hands dropped from

the keys with fatigue. Throughout these hours, his mind ran chiefly on

the words Schwarz had said to him, the previous evening. They rose

before him in their full significance, and he leisurely chewed the

honeyed cud of praise. "I will undertake to make something of you,

undertake to make something of you"--his brain tore the phrase to

tatters. "Something" was properly vague, as praise should be, and

allowed the imagination free scope. Under the stimulus, everything came

easy; he mastered a passage of bound sixths that had baffled him for

days. And in this elated frame of mind, there was something almost

pleasurable in the pang with which he would become conscious of a

shadow in the background, a spot on his sun to make him unhappy.

Unhappy?--no: it gave a zest to his goings--out and comings-in. Through

long hours of work he was borne up by an ardent hope: afterwards, he

might see her. It made the streets exciting places of possible

surprises. Might she not, at any moment, turn the corner and be before

him? Might she not, this very instant, be going in the same direction

as he, in the next street? But a very little of this pleasant dallying

with chance was enough. One morning, when the houses opposite were

ablaze with sunshine, and he had settled down to practice with a keen

relish for the obstacles to be overcome; on this morning, within half

an hour, his mood swung round to the other extreme, and, from now on,

his desire to see her again was a burning unrest, which roused him from

sleep, and drove him out, at odd hours, no matter what he was doing.

Moodily he scoured the streets round the Conservatorium, disconcerted

by his own folly, and pricked incessantly by the consciousness of time

wasted. A companion at his side might have dispelled the cobwebs; but

Dove, his only friend, he avoided, for the reason that Dove's unfailing

good spirits needed to be met with a similar mood. And as for speaking

of the matter, the mere thought of the detailed explanation that would

now be necessary, did he open his lips, filled him with dismay. When

four or five days had gone by in this manner, without result, he took

to hanging about, with other idlers, on the steps of the

Conservatorium, always hoping that she would suddenly emerge from the

doors behind him, or come towards him, a roll of music in her hand.

But she never came.

One afternoon, however, as he loitered there, he encountered his

acquaintance of the very first day. He recognised her while she was

still some distance off, by her peculiar springy gait; at each step,

she rose slightly on the front part of her foot, as if her heels were

on springs. As before, she was indifferently dressed; a small, close

hat came down over her face and hid her forehead; her skirt seemed

shrunken, and hung limp about her ankles, accentuating the straightness

of her figure. But below the brim of the hat her eyes were as bright as

ever, and took note of all that happened. On seeing Maurice, she

professed to remember him "perfectly," beginning to speak before she

had quite come up to him.

The following day they met once more at the same place. This time, she

raised her eyebrows.

"You here again?" she said.

She disappeared inside the building; but a few minutes later returned,

and said she was going for a walk: would he come, too?

He assented, with grateful surprise, and they set off together in the

direction of the woods, as briskly as though they were on an errand.

But when they had crossed the suspension-bridge and reached the quieter

paths that ran through the NONNE, they simultaneously slackened their

pace. The luxuriant undergrowth of shrub, which filled in, like

lacework, the spaces between the tree-trunks, was sprinkled with its

first dots and pricks of green, and the afternoon was pleasant for

walking--sunless and still, and just a little fragrantly damp from all

the rife budding and sprouting. It was a day to further a friendship

more effectually than half a dozen brighter ones; a day on which to

speak out thoughts which a June sky, the indiscreet playing of full

sunlight, even the rustling of the breeze in the leaves might scare,

like fish, from the surface.

When they had laughingly introduced themselves to each other Maurice

Guest's companion talked about herself, with a frankness that left

nothing to be desired, and impressed the young man at her side very

agreeably. Before they had gone far, he knew all about her. Her name

was Madeleine Wade; she came from a small town in Leicestershire, and,

except for a step-brother, stood alone in the world. For several years,

she had been a teacher in a large school near London, and the position

was open for her to return to, when she had completed this, the final

year of her course. Then, however, she would devote herself exclusively

to the teaching of music, and, with this in view, she had here taken up

as many branches of study as she had time for. Besides piano, which was

her chief subject, she learned singing, organ, counterpoint, and the

elements of the violin.

"So much is demanded nowadays," she said in her dear soprano. "And if

you want to get on, it doesn't do to be behindhand. Of course, it means

hard work, but that is nothing to me--I am used to work and love it.

Since I was seventeen--I am twenty-six now--I can fairly say I have

never got up in the morning, without having my whole day mapped and

planned before me.--So you see idlers can have no place on my list of

saints."

She spoke lightly, yet with a certain under-meaning. As, however,

Maurice Guest, on whom her words made a sympathetic impression, as of

something strong and self-reliant--as he did not respond to it, she

fell back on directness, and asked him what he had been doing when she

met him, both on this day and the one before.

"I tell you candidly, I was astonished to find you there again," she

said. "As a rule, new-comers are desperately earnest brooms."

His laugh was a trifle uneasy; and he answered evasively, not meaning

to say much. But he had reckoned without the week of silence that lay

behind him; it had been more of a strain than he knew, and his pent-up

speech once set agoing could not be brought to a stop. An almost

physical need of communication made itself felt in him; he spoke with a

volubility that was foreign to him, began his sentences with a

confidential "You see," and said things at which he himself was amazed.

He related impressions, not facts, and impressions which, until now, he

had not been conscious of receiving; he told unguardedly of his plans

and ambitions, and even went back and touched on his home-life,

dwelling with considerable bitterness on the scant sympathy he had

received.

His companion looked at him curiously. She had expected a casual answer

to her casual words, a surface frankness, such as she herself had

shown, and, at first, she felt sceptical towards this unbidden

confidence: she did not care for people who gave themselves away at a

word; either they were naive to foolishness or inordinately vain. But

having listened for some time to his outpourings, she began to feel

reassured; and soon she understood that he was talking thus at random,

merely because he was lonely and bottled-up. Before he had finished,

she was even a little gratified by his openness, and on his confiding

to her what Schwarz had said to him, she smiled indulgently.

"Perhaps I took it to mean more than it actually did," said Maurice

apologetically. "But anyhow it was cheering to hear it. You see, I must

prove to the people at home that I was right and they were wrong.

Failure was preached at me on every side. I was the only soul to

believe in myself."

"And you really disliked teaching so?"

"Hated it with all my heart."

She frankly examined him. He had a pale, longish face, with thin lips,

which might indicate either narrow prejudice or a fanatic tenacity.

When he grew animated, he had a habit of opening his eyes very wide,

and of staring straight before him. At such moments, too, he tossed

back his head, with the impatient movements of a young horse. His hands

and feet were good, his clothes of a provincial cut. Her fingers itched

to retie the bow of his cravat for him, to pull him here and there into

shape. Altogether, he made the impression upon her of being a very

young man: when he coloured, or otherwise grew embarrassed, under her

steady gaze, she mentally put him down for less than twenty. But he had

good manners; he allowed her to pass before him, where the way grew

narrow; walked on the outside of the path; made haste to draw back an

obstreperous branch; and not one of these trifling conventionalities

was lost on Madeleine Wade.

They had turned their steps homewards, and were drawing near the edge

of the wood, when, through the tree-trunks, which here were bare and

far apart, they saw two people walking arm in arm; and on turning a

corner found the couple coming straight towards them, on the same path

as themselves. In the full flush of his talk, Maurice Guest did not at

first grasp what was about to happen. He had ended the sentence he was

at, and begun another, before the truth broke on him. Then he

stuttered, lost the thread of his thought, was abruptly silent; and

what he had been going to say, and what, a moment before, had seemed of

the utmost importance, was never said. His companion did not seem to

notice his preoccupation; she gave an exclamation of what sounded like

surprise, and herself looked steadily at the approaching pair. Thus

they went forward to a meeting which the young man had imagined to

himself in many ways, but not in this. The moment he had waited for had

come; and now he wished himself miles away. Meanwhile, they walked on,

in a brutal, matter-of-fact fashion, and at a fairish pace, though each

step he took was an event, and his feet were as heavy and awkward as if

they did not belong to him.

The other two sauntered towards them, without haste. The man she was

with had his arm through hers, her hand in his left hand, while in his

right he twirled a cane. They were not speaking; she looked before her,

rather listlessly, with dark, indifferent eyes. To see this, to see

also that she was taller and broader than he had believed, and in full

daylight somewhat sallow, Maurice had first to conquer an aversion to

look at all, on account of the open familiarity of their attitude. It

was not like this that he had dreamt of finding her. And so it happened

that when, without a word to him, his companion crossed the path and

confronted the other two, he only lingered for an instant, in an agony

of indecision, and then, by an impulse over which he had no control,

walked on and stood out of earshot.

He drew a deep breath, like one who has escaped a danger; but almost

simultaneously he bit his lip with mortification: could any power on

earth make it clear to him why he had acted in this way? All his

thoughts had been directed towards this moment for so long, only to

take this miserable end. A string of contemptuous epithets for himself

rose to his lips. But when he looked back at the group, the reason of

his folly was apparent to him; at the sight of this other beside her, a

sharp twinge of jealousy had run through him and disturbed his balance.

He gazed ardently at her in the hope that she would look round, but it

was only the man--he was caressing his slight moustache and hitting at

loose stones while the girls talked--who turned, as if drawn by

Maurice's stare, and looked full at him, with studied insolence. In

him, Maurice recognised the violinist of the concert, but he, too, was

taller than he had believed, and much younger. A mere boy, said Maurice

to himself; a mere boy, with a disagreeable dissipated face.

Madeleine Wade came hurrying to rejoin him, apologising for the delay;

the meeting had, however, been fortunate, as she had had a message from

Schwarz to deliver. Maurice let a few seconds elapse, then asked

without preamble: "Who is that?"

His companion looked quickly at him, struck both by his tone and by his

unconscious use of the singular. The air of indifference with which he

was looking out across the meadowland, told its own tale.

"Schilsky? Don't you know Schilsky? Our Joachim IN SPE?" she asked, to

tease him.

Maurice Guest coloured. "Yes, I heard him play the other night," he

answered in good faith. "But I didn't mean him. I meant the--the lady

he was with."

The girl at his side laughed, not very heartily.

"ET TU, BRUTE!" she said. "I might have known it. It really is

remarkable that though so many people don't think Louise goodlooking--I

have often heard her called plain--yet I never knew a man go past her

without turning his head.--You want to know who and what she is? Well,

that depends on whom you ask. Schwarz would tell you she was one of his

most gifted pupils--but no: he always says that of his pretty girls,

and some do find her pretty, you know."

"She is, indeed, very," said Maurice with warmth. "Though I think

pretty is not just the word."

"No, I don't suppose it is," said Madeleine, and this time there was a

note of mockery in her laugh. But Maurice did not let himself be

deterred. As it seemed likely that she was going to let the subject

rest here, he persisted: "But suppose I asked you--what would you say?"

She gave him a shrewd side-glance. "I think I won't tell you," she

said, more gravely. "If a man has once thought a girl pretty, and all

the rest of it, he's never grateful for the truth. If I said Louise was

a baggage, or a minx, or some other horrid thing, you would always bear

me a grudge for it, so please note, I don't say it--for we are going to

be friends, I hope?"

"I hope so, too," said the young man.

They walked some distance along the unfinished end of the

MOZARTSTRASSE, where only a few villas stood, in newly made gardens.

"At least, I should like to know her name her whole name. You said

Louise, I think?"

She laughed outright at this. "Her name is Dufrayer, Louise Dufrayer,

and she has been here studying with Schwarz for about a year and a half

now. She has some talent, but is indolent to the last degree, and only

works when she can't help it. Also she always has an admirer of some

kind in tow. This, to-day, is her last particular friend.--Is that

biographical matter enough?"

He was afraid he had made himself ridiculous in her eyes, and did not

answer. They walked the rest of the way in silence. At her house-door,

they paused to take leave of each other.

"Good-bye. Come and see me sometimes when you have time. We were once

colleagues, you know, and are now fellow-pupils. I should be glad to

help you if you ever need help."

He thanked her and promised to remember; then walked home without,

knowing how he did it. He had room in brain for one thought only; he

knew her name, he knew her name. He said it again and again to himself,

walked in time with it, and found it as heady as wine; the mere sound

of the spoken syllables seemed to bring her nearer to him, to establish

a mysterious connection between them. Moreover, in itself it pleased

him extraordinarily; and he was vaguely grateful to something outside

himself, that it was a name he could honestly admire.

In a kind of defiant challenge to unseen powers, he doubled his arm and

felt the muscles in it. Then he sat down at his piano, and, to the

dismay of his landlady--for it was now late evening--practised for a

couple of hours without stopping. And the scales he sent flying up and

down in the darkness had a ring of exultation in them, were like cries

of triumph.

He had discovered the "Open Sesame" to his treasure. And there was time

and to spare. He left everything to the future, in blind trust that it

would bring him good fortune. It was enough that they were here

together, inhabitants of the same town. Besides, he had formed a

friendship with some one who knew her; a way would surely open up, in

which he might make her aware of his presence. In the meantime, it was

something to live for. Each day that dawned might be THE day.

But little by little, like a fountain run dry, his elation subsided,

and, as he lay sleepless, he had a sudden fit of jealous despair. He

remembered, with a horrid distinctness, how he had seen her. Again she

came towards them, at the other's side, hand in hand with him,

inattentive to all but him. Now he could almost have wept at the

recollection. Those clasped hands!--he could have forgiven everything

else, but the thought of these remained with him and stung him. Here he

lay, thinking wild and foolish things, building castles that had no

earthly foundation, and all the time it was another who had the right

to be with her, to walk at her side, and share her thoughts. Again he

was the outsider; behind these two was a life full of detail and

circumstance, of which he knew nothing. His excited brain called up

pictures, imagined fiercely at words and looks, until the darkness and

stillness of the room became unendurable; and he sprang up, threw on

his clothing, and went out. Retracing his steps, he found the very spot

where they had met. Guiltily, with a stealthy look round him, though

wood and night were black as ink, he knelt down and kissed the gravel

where he thought she had stood.

IV.

It was through Dove's agency--Dove was always on the spot to guide and

assist his friends; to advise where the best, or cheapest, or rarest,

of anything was to be had, from secondhand Wagner scores to hair

pomade; he knew those shops where the "half-quarters" of ham or

roast-beef weighed heavier than elsewhere, restaurants where the beer

had least froth and the cutlets were largest for the money; knew the

ins and outs of Leipzig as no other foreigner did, knew all that went

on, and the affairs of everybody, as though he went through life

garnering in just those little facts that others were apt to overlook.

Through Dove, Maurice became a paying guest at a dinner-table kept by

two maiden ladies, who eked out their income by providing a plain meal,

at a low price, for respectable young people.

The company was made up to a large extent of English-speaking

foreigners. There were several university students--grave-faced, older

men, with beards and spectacles--who looked down on the young

musicians, and talked, of set purpose, on abstruse subjects. More

noteworthy were two American pianists: Ford, who could not carry a

single glass of beer, and played better when he had had more than one;

and James, a wiry, red-haired man, with an unfaltering opinion of

himself, and an iron wrist--by means of a week's practice, he could

ruin any piano. Two ladies were also present. Philadelphia Jensen; of

German-American parentage, was a student of voice-production, under a

Swedish singing master who had lately set musical circles in a ferment,

with his new and extraordinary method: its devotees swore that, in

time, it would display marvellous results; but, in the meantime, the

most advanced pupils were only emitting single notes, and the greater

number stood, every morning, before their respective mirrors, watching

their mouths open and shut, fish-fashion, without producing a sound.

Miss Jensen--she preferred the English pronunciation of the J--was a

large, fleshy woman, with a curled fringe and prominent eyes. Her

future stage-presence was the object of general admiration; it was

whispered that she aimed at Isolde. Loud in voice and manner, she was

fond of proclaiming her views on all kinds of subjects, from

diaphragmatic respiration, through GHOSTS, which was being read by a

bold, advanced few, down to the continental methods of regulating

vice--to the intense embarrassment of those who sat next her at table.

Still another American lady, Miss Martin, was studying with Bendel, the

rival of Schwarz; and as she lived in the same quarter of the town as

Dove and Maurice, the three of them often walked home together. For the

most part, Miss Martin was in a state of tragic despair. With the

frankness of her race, she admitted that she had arrived in Leipzig,

expecting to astonish. In this she had been disappointed; Bendel had

treated her like any other of his pupils; she was still playing Haydn

and Czerny, and saw endless vistas of similar composers "back of

these." Dove laid the whole blame on Bendel's method--which he

denounced with eloquence--and strongly advocated her becoming a pupil

of Schwarz. He himself undertook to arrange matters, and, in what

seemed an incredibly short time, the change was effected. For a little,

things went better; Schwarz was reported to have said that she had

talent, great talent, and that he would make something of her; but

soon, she was complaining anew: if there were any difference between

Czerny and Bertini, Haydn and Dussek, some one might "slick up" and

tell her what it was. Off the subject of her own gifts, she was a

lively, affable girl, with china-blue eyes, pale flaxen hair, and

coal-black eyebrows; and both young men got on well with her, in the

usual superficial way. For Maurice Guest, she had the additional

attraction, that he had once seen her in the street with the object of

his romantic fancy.

Since the afternoon when he had heard from Madeleine Wade who this was,

he had not advanced a step nearer making her acquaintance; though a

couple of weeks had passed, though he now knew two people who knew her,

and though his satisfaction at learning her name had immediately

yielded to a hunger for more. And now, hardly a day went by, on which

he did not see her. His infatuation had made him keen of scent; by

following her, with due precaution, he had found out for himself in the

BRUDERSTRASSE, the roomy old house she lived in; had found out how she

came and went. He knew her associates, knew the streets she preferred,

the hour of day at which she was to be met at the Conservatorium. Far

away, at the other end of one of the quiet streets that lay wide and

sunny about the Gewandhaus, when, to other eyes she was a mere speck in

the distance, he learned to recognise her--if only by the speed at

which his heart beat--and he even gave chase to imaginary resemblances.

Once he remained sitting in a tramway far beyond his destination,

because he traced, in one of the passengers, a curious likeness to her,

in long, wavy eyebrows that were highest in the middle of the forehead.

Thus the pale face with the heavy eyes haunted him by day and by night.

He was very happy and very unhappy, by turns--never at rest. If he

imagined she had looked observantly at him as she passed, he was elated

for hours after. If she did not seem to notice him, it was brought home

to him anew that he was nothing to her; and once, when he had gazed too

boldly, instead of turning away his eyes, as she went close by him to

Schwarz's room, and she had resented the look with cold surprise, he

felt as culpable as if he had insulted her. He atoned for his

behaviour, the next time they met, by assuming his very humblest air;

once, too, he deliberately threw himself in her way, for the mere

pleasure of standing aside with the emphatic deference of a slave.

Throughout this period, and particularly after an occasion such as the

last, his self-consciousness was so peculiarly intensified that his

surroundings ceased to exist for him--they two were the gigantic

figures on a shadow background--and what he sometimes could not believe

was, that such feelings as these should be seething in him, and she

remain ignorant of them. He lost touch with reality, and dreamed dreams

of imperceptible threads, finer than any gossamer, which could be spun

from soul to soul, without the need of speech.

He heaped on her all the spiritual perfections that answered to her

appearance. And he did not, for a time, observe anything to make him

waver in his faith that she was whiter, stiller, and more

unapproachable--of a different clay, in short, from other women. Then,

however, this illusion was shattered. Late one afternoon, she came down

the stairs of the house she lived in, and, pausing at the door, looked

up and down the hot, empty street, shading her eyes with her hand. No

one was in sight, and she was about to turn away, when, from where he

was watching in a neighbouring doorway, Maurice saw the red-haired

violinist come swiftly round the corner. She saw him, too, took a few,

quick steps towards him, and, believing herself unseen, looked up in is

face as they met; and the passionate tenderness of the look, the sudden

lighting of lip and eye, racked the poor, unwilling spy for days. To

suit this abrupt descent from the pedestal, he was obliged to carve a

new attribute to his idol, and laboriously adapt it.

Schilsky, this insolent boy, was the thorn in his side. It was Schilsky

she was oftenest to be met with; he was her companion at the most

unexpected hours; and, with reluctance, Maurice had to admit to himself

that she had apparently no thought to spare for anyone else. But it did

not make any difference. The curious way in which he felt towards her,

the strange, overwhelming effect her face had on him, took no account

of outside things. Though he might never hope for a word from her;

though he should learn in the coming moment that she was the other's

promised wife; he could not for that reason banish her from his mind.

His feelings were not to be put on and off, like clothes; he had no

power over them. It was simply a case of accepting things as they were,

and this he sought to do.

But his imagination made it hard for him, by throwing up pictures in

which Schilsky was all-prominent. He saw him the confidant of her joys

and troubles; HE knew their origin, knew what key her day was set in.

If her head ached, if she were tired or spiritless, his hand was on her

brow. The smallest events in her life were an open book to him; and it

was these worthless details that Maurice Guest envied him most. He kept

a tight hold on his fancy, but if, as sometimes happened, it slipped

control, and painted further looks of the kind he had seen exchanged

between them, a kiss or an embrace, he was as wretched as if he had in

reality been present.

At other times, this jealous unrest was not the bitterest drop in his

cup; it was bitterer to know that she was squandering her love on one

who was unworthy of it. At first, from a feeling of exaggerated

delicacy, he had gone out of his way to escape hearing Schilsky's name;

but this mood passed, and gave place to an undignified hankering to

learn everything he could, concerning the young man. What he heard

amounted to this: a talented rascal, the best violinist the

Conservatorium had turned out for years, one to whom all gates would

open; but--this "but" always followed, with a meaning smile and a wink

of the eye: and then came the anecdotes. They had nothing

heaven-scaling in them--these soiled love-stories; this perpetual

impecuniosity; this inability to refuse money, no matter whose the hand

that offered it; this fine art in the disregarding of established

canons--and, to Maurice Guest, bred to sterner standards, they seemed

unspeakably low and mean. Hours came when he strove in vain to

understand her. Ignorant of these things she could not be; was it

within the limits of the possible that she could overlook them?--and he

shivered lest he should be forced to think less highly of her.

Ultimately, sending his mind back over what he had read and heard,

drawing on his own slight experience, he came to a compromise with

himself. He said that most often the best and fairest women loved men

who were unworthy of them. Was it not a weakness and a strength of her

sex to see good where no good was?--a kind of divine frailty, a wilful

blindness, a sweet inability to discern.

At times, again, he felt almost content that Schilsky was what he was.

If the day should ever come when, all barriers down, he, Maurice Guest,

might be intimately associated with her life; if he should ever have

the chance of proving to her what real love was, what a holy mystic

thing, how far removed from a blind passing fancy; if he might serve

her, be her slave, lay his hands under her feet, lead her up and on,

all suffused in a sunset of tenderness: then, she would see that what

she had believed to be love had been nothing but a FATA MORGANA, a

mirage of the skies. And he heard himself whispering words of

incredible fondness to her, saw her listening with wonder in her eyes.

At still other moments, he was ready to renounce every hope, if, by

doing so, he could add jot or tittle to her happiness.

The further he spun himself into his dreams, however, and the better he

learnt to know her in imagination, the harder it grew to take the first

step towards realising his wishes. In those few, brief days, when he

hugged her name to him as a talisman, he waited cheerfully for

something to happen, something unusual, that would bring him to her

notice--a dropped handkerchief, a seat vacated for her at a concert,

even a timely accident. But as day after day went by, in eventless

monotony, he began to cast about him for human aid. From Dove, his

daily companion, Dove of the outstretched paws of continual help, he

now shrank away. Miss Martin was not to be spoken to except in Dove's

company. There was only one person who could assist him, if she would,

and that was Madeleine Wade. He called to mind the hearty invitation

she had given him, and reproached himself for not having taken

advantage of it.

One afternoon, towards six o'clock, he rang the bell of her lodgings in

the MOZARTSTRASSE. This was a new street, the first blocks of which

gave directly on the Gewandhaus square; but, at the further end, where

she lived, a phalanx of redbrick and stucco fronts looked primly across

at a similar line. In the third storey of one of these houses,

Madeleine Wade had a single, large room, the furniture of which was so

skilfully contrived, that, by day, all traces of the room's double

calling were obliterated.

As he entered, on this first occasion, she was practising at a grand

piano which stood before one of the windows. She rose at once, and,

having greeted him warmly, made him sit down among the comfortable

cushions that lined the sofa. Then she took cups and saucers from a

cupboard in the wall, and prepared tea over a spirit-lamp. He soon felt

quite at home with her, and enjoyed himself so well that many such

informal visits followed.

But the fact was not to be denied: it was her surroundings that

attracted him, rather than she herself. True, he found her frankness

delightfully "refreshing," and when he spoke of her, it was as of an

"awfully good sort," "a first-class girl"; for Madeleine was invariably

lively, kind and helpful. At the same time, she was without doubt a

trifle too composed, too sure of herself; she had too keen an eye for

human foibles; she came towards you with a perfectly natural openness,

and she came all the way--there was nothing left for you to explore.

And when not actually with her, it was easy to forget her; there was

never a look or a smile, never a barbed word, never a sudden

spontaneous gesture--the vivid translation of a thought--to stamp

itself on your memory.

But it was only at the outset that he thought things like these.

Madeleine Wade had been through experiences of the same kind before;

and hardly a fortnight later they were calling each other by their

Christian names.

When he came to her, towards evening, tired and inclined to be lonely,

she seated him in a corner of the sofa, and did not ask him to say much

until she made the tea. Then, when the cups were steaming in front of

them, she discussed sympathetically with him the progress of his work.

She questioned him, too, about his home and family, and he read her

parts of his mother's letters, which arrived without fail every Tuesday

morning. She also drew from him a more detailed account of his previous

life; and, in this connection, they had several animated discussions

about teaching, a calling to which Madeleine looked composedly forward

to returning, while Maurice, in strong superlative, declared he had

rather force a flock of sheep to walk in line. She told him, too, some

of the gossip the musical quarter of the town was rife with, about

those in high places; and, in particular, of the bitter rivalry that

had grown up with the years between Schwarz and Bendel, the chief

masters of the piano. If these two met in the street, they passed each

other with a stony stare; if, at an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, a pupil of one

was to play, the other rose ostentatiously and left the hall. She also

hinted that in order to obtain all you wanted at the Conservatorium, to

be favoured above your fellows, it was only necessary flagrantly to

bribe one of the clerks, Kleefeld by name, who was open to receive

anything, being wretchedly impecunious and the father of a large family.

Finding, too, that Maurice was bent on learning German, she, who spoke

the language fluently, proposed that they should read it together; and

soon it became their custom to work through a few pages of QUINTUS

FIXLEIN, a scene or two of Schiller, some lyrics of Heine. They also

began to play duets, symphonies old and new, and Madeleine took care

constantly to have something fresh and interesting at hand. To all this

the young man brought an unbounded zeal, and, if he had had his way,

they would have gone on playing or reading far into the evening.

She smiled at his eagerness. "You absorb like a sponge."

When it grew too dark to see, he confided to her that his dearest wish

was to be a conductor. He was not yet clear how it could be managed,

but he was sure that this was the branch of his art for which he had

most aptitude.

Here she interrupted him. "Do you never write verses?"

Her question seemed to him so meaningless that he only laughed, and

went on with what he was saying. For the event of his plan proving

impracticable--at home they had no idea of it--he was training as a

concert-player; but he intended to miss no chance that offered, of

learning how to handle an orchestra.

Throughout these hours of stimulating companionship, however, he did

not lose sight of his original purpose in going to see Madeleine. It

was only that just the right moment never seemed to come; and the name

he was so anxious to hear, had not once been mentioned between them.

Often, in the dusk, his lips twitched to speak it; but he feared his

own awkwardness, and her quick tongue; then, too, the subject was

usually far aside from what they were talking of, and it would have

made a ludicrous impression to drag it in by the hair.

But one day his patience was rewarded. He had carelessly taken up a

paper-bound volume of Chopin, and was on the point of commenting upon

it, for he had lately begun to understand the difference between a

Litolff and a Mikuli. But it slipped from his hand, and he was obliged

to crawl under the piano to pick it up; on a corner of the cover, in a

big, black, scrawly writing, was the name of Marie Louise Dufrayer. He

cleared his throat, laid the volume down, took it up again; then,

realising that the moment had come, he put a bold face on the matter.

"I see this belongs to Miss Dufrayer," he said bluntly, and, as his

companion's answer was only a careless: "Yes, Louise forgot it the last

time she was here," he went on without delay: "I should like to know

Miss Dufrayer, Madeleine. Do you think you could introduce me to her?"

Madeleine, who was in the act of taking down a book from her hanging

shelves, turned and looked at him. He was still red in the face, from

the exertion of stooping.

"Introduce you to Louise?" she queried. "Why?--why do you want to be

introduced to her?"

"Oh, I don't know. For no particular reason."

She sat down at the table, opened the book, and turned the leaves.

"Oh well, I daresay I can, if you wish it, and an opportunity

occurs--if you're with me some day when I meet her.--Now shall we go on

with the JUNGFRAU? We were beginning the third act, I think. Here it is:

Wir waren Herzensbruder, Waffenfreunde,

Fur eine Sache hoben wir den Arm!"

But Maurice did not take the book she handed him across the table.

"Won't you give me a more definite promise than that?"

Madeleine sat back in her chair, and, folding her arms, looked

thoughtfully at him.

Only a momentary silence followed his words, but, in this fraction of

time, a series of impressions swept through her brain with the

continuity of a bird's flight. It was clear to her at once, that what

prompted his insistence was not an ordinary curiosity, or a passing

whim; in a flash, she understood that here, below the surface,

something was at work in him, the existence of which she had not even

suspected. She was more than annoyed with herself at her own foolish

obtuseness; she had had these experiences before, and then, as now, the

object of her interest had invariably been turned aside by the first

pretty, silly face that came his way. The main difference was that she

had been more than ordinarily drawn to Maurice Guest; and, believing it

impossible, in this case, for anyone else to be sharing the field with

her, she had over-indulged the hope that he sought her out for herself

alone.

She endeavoured to learn more. But this time Maurice was on his guard,

and the questions she put, straight though they were, only elicited the

response that he had seen Miss Dufrayer shortly after arriving, and had

been much struck by her.

Madeleine's brain travelled rapidly backwards. "But if I remember

rightly, Maurice, we met Louise one day in the SCHEIBENHOLZ, the first

time we went for a walk together. Why didn't you stop then, and be

introduced to her, if you were so anxious?"

"Why do we ever do foolish things?"

Her amazement was so patent that he made uncomfortable apology for

himself. "It is ridiculous, I know," he said and coloured. "And it must

seem doubly so to you. But that I should want to know her--there's

nothing strange in that, is there? You, too, Madeleine, have surely

admired people sometimes--some one, say, who has done a fine thing--and

have felt that you must know them personally, at all costs?"

"Perhaps I have. But romantic feelings of that kind are sure to end in

smoke. As a rule they've no foundation but our own wishes.--If you take

my advice, Maurice, you will be content to admire Louise at a distance.

Think her as pretty as you like, and imagine her to be all that's sweet

and charming: but never mind about knowing her."

"But why on earth not?"

"Why, nothing will come of it."

"That depends on what you mean by nothing."

"You don't understand. I must be plainer.--Do sit down, and don't

fidget so.--How long have you been here now? Nearly two months. Well,

that's long enough to know something of what's going on. You must have

both seen and heard that Louise has no eyes for anyone but a certain

person, to put it bluntly, that she is wrapped up in Schilsky. This has

been going on for over a year now, and she seems to grow more

infatuated every day. When she first came to Leipzig, we were friends;

she lived in this neighbourhood, and I was able to be of service to

her. Now, weeks go by and I don't see her; she has broken with every

one--for Louise is not a girl to do things by halves.--Introduce you?

Of course I can. But suppose it done, with all pomp and ceremony, what

will you get from it? I know Louise. A word or two, if her ladyship is

in the mood; if not, you will be so much thin air for her. And after

that, a nod if she meets you in the street--and that's all."

"It's enough."

"You're easily satisfied.--But tell me, honestly now, Maurice, what

possible good can that do you?"

He moved aimlessly about the room. "Good? Must one always look for good

in everything?--I can see quite well that from your point of view the

whole thing must seem absurd. I expect nothing whatever from it, but

I'm going to know her, and that's all about it."

Still in the same position, with folded arms, Madeleine observed him

with unblinking eyes.

"And you won't bear me a grudge, if things go badly?--I mean if you are

disappointed, or dissatisfied?"

He made a gesture of impatience.

"Yes, but I know Louise, and you don't."

He had picked up from the writing-table the photograph of a curate, and

he stared at it as if he had no thought but to let the mild features

stamp themselves on his mind. Madeleine's eyes continued to bore him

through. At last, out of a silence, she said slowly: "Of course I can

introduce you--it's done with a wave of the hand. But, as your friend,

I think it only right to warn you what you must expect. For I can see

you don't understand in the least, and are laying up a big

disappointment for yourself. However, you shall have your way--if only

to show you that I am right."

"Thanks, Madeleine--thanks awfully."

They settled down to read Schiller. But Maurice made one slip after

another, and she let them pass uncorrected. She was annoyed with

herself afresh, for having made too much of the matter, for having

blown it up to a fictitious importance, when the wiser way would have

been to treat it as of no consequence at all.

The next afternoon he arrived, with expectation in his face; but not on

this day, nor the next, nor the next again, did she bring the subject

up between them. On the fourth, however, as he was leaving, she said

abruptly: "You must have patience for a little, Maurice. Louise has

gone to Dresden."

"That's why the blinds are down," he exclaimed without thinking, then

coloured furiously at his own words, and, to smooth them over, asked:

"Why has she gone? For how long?"

But Madeleine caught him up. "SIEH DA, some one has been playing

sentinel!" she said in raillery; and it seemed to him that every fold

in his brain was laid bare to her, before she answered: "She has gone

for a week or ten days--to visit some friends who are staying there."

He nodded, and was about to open the door, when she added: "But set

your mind at rest--HE is here."

Maurice looked sharply up; but a minute or two passed before the true

meaning of her words broke on him. He coloured again--a mortifying

habit he had not outgrown, and one which seemed to affect him more in

the presence of Madeleine than of anyone else.

"It's hardly a thing to joke about."