Afterwards, they sauntered home—first to Maurice's lodging, then to Krafft's, and once again to Maurice's. At this stage, Krafft was frankness itself; Maurice learnt to his surprise that the slim, boyish lad at his side was over twenty-seven years of age; that, for several semesters, Krafft had studied medicine in Vienna, then had thrown up this "disgusting occupation," to become a clerk in a wealthy uncle's counting-house. From this, he had drifted into journalism, and finally, at the instigation of Hans von Bullow, to music; he had been for two and a half years with Bullow, on travel, and in Hamburg, and was at present in Leipzig solely to have his "fingers put in order." His plans for the future were many, and widely divergent. At one time, a musical career tempted him irresistibly; every one but Schwarz—this finger-machine, this generator of living metronomes—believed that he could make a name for himself as a player of Chopin. At other times, and more often, he contemplated retiring from the world and entering a monastery. He spoke with a morbid horror—yet as if the idea of it fascinated him—of the publicity of the concert-platform, and painted in glowing colours a monastery he knew of, standing on a wooded hill, not far from Vienna. He had once spent several weeks there, recovering from an illness, and the gardens, the trimly bedded flowers, the glancing sunlight in the utter silence of the corridors, were things he could not forget. He had lain day for day on a garden-bench, reading Novalis, and it still seemed to him that the wishless happiness of those days was the greatest he had known.

Beside this, Maurice's account of himself sounded tame and unimportant; he felt, too, that the circumstances of English life were too far removed from his companion's sphere, for the latter to be able to understand them.

On waking next morning, Maurice recalled the incidents of the evening with a smile; felt a touch of warmth at the remembrance of the moment when he had held Krafft's hand in his; then classed the whole episode as strained, and dismissed it from his mind. He had just shut the piano, after a busy forenoon, when Krafft burst in, his cheeks pink with haste and excitement. He had discovered a room to let, in the house he lived in, and nothing would satisfy him but that Maurice should come instantly to see it. Laughing at his eagerness, Maurice put forward his reasons for preferring to remain where he was. But Krafft would take no denial, and not wishing to hurt his feelings, Maurice gave way, and agreed at least to look at the room.

It was larger and more cheerful than his own, and had also, a convenient alcove for the bedstead; and after inspecting it, Maurice felt willing to expend the extra marks it cost. They withdrew to Krafft's room to come to a decision. There, however, they found Avery Hill, who, as soon as she heard what they contemplated, put a veto on it. Growing pale, as she always did where others would have flushed, she said: "It is an absurd idea—sheer nonsense! I won't have it, understand that! Pray, excuse me," she continued to Maurice, speaking in a more friendly tone than she had yet used to him, "but you must not listen to him. It is just one of his whims—nothing more. In less than a week, you would wish yourself away again. You have no idea how changeable he is—how impossible to live with."

Maurice hastened to reassure her. Krafft did not speak; he stood at the window, with his back to them, his forehead pressed against the glass.

So Maurice continued to live in the BRAUSTRASSE, under the despotic rule of Frau Krause, who took every advantage of his good-nature. But after this, not a day passed without his seeing Krafft; the latter sought him out on trivial pretexts. Maurice hardly recognised him: he was gentle, amiable, and amenable to reason; he subordinated himself entirely to Maurice, and laid an ever-increasing weight on his opinion. Maurice became able to wind him round his finger; and the hint of a reproof from him served to throw Krafft into a state of nervous depression. Without difficulty, Maurice found himself to rights in his role of mentor, and began to flatter himself that he would ultimately make of Krafft a decent member of society. As it was, he soon induced his friend to study in a more methodical way; they practised for the same number of hours in the forenoon, and met in the afternoon; and Krafft only sometimes broke through this arrangement, by appearing in the BRAUSTRASSE early in the morning, and, despite remonstrance, throwing himself on the sofa, and remaining there, while Maurice practised. The latter ended by growing accustomed to this whim as to several other things that had jarred on him—such as Krafft's love for a dirty jest—and overlooked or forgave them. At first embarrassed by the mushroom growth of a friendship he had not invited, he soon grew genuinely attached to Krafft, and missed him when he was absent from him.

Avery Hill could hardly be termed third in the alliance; Maurice's advent had thrust her into the background, where she kept watch over their doings with her cold, disdainful eye. Maurice was not clear how she regarded his intrusion. Sometimes, particularly when she saw the improvement in Heinrich's way of life, she seemed to tolerate his presence gladly; at others again, her jealous aversion to him was too open to be overlooked. The jealousy was natural; he was an interloper, and Heinz neglected her shamefully for him; but there was something else behind it, another feeling, which Maurice could not make out. He by no means understood the relationship that existed between his friend and this girl of the stone-grey eyes and stern, red lips. The two lived almost door by door, went in and out of each other's rooms at all hours, and yet, he had never heard them exchange an affectionate word, or seen a mark of endearment pass between them. Avery's attachment—if such it could be called—was noticeable only in the many small ways in which she cared for Krafft's comfort; her manner with him was invariably severe and distant, with the exception of those occasions when a seeming trifle raised in her a burst of the dull, passionate anger, beneath which Krafft shrank. Maurice believed that his friend would be happier away from her; in spite of her fresh colouring, he, Maurice, found her wanting in attraction, nothing that a woman ought to be. But her name was rarely mentioned between them; Krafft was, as a rule, reticent concerning her, and when he did speak of her, it was in a tone of such contempt that Maurice was glad to shirk the subject.

"It's all she wants," Krafft had replied, when his companion ventured to take her part. "She wouldn't thank you to be treated differently. Believe me, women are all alike; they are made to be trodden on. Ill-usage brings out their good points—just as kneading makes dough light. Let them alone, or pamper them, and they spread like a weed, and choke you"—and he quoted a saying about going to women and not forgetting the whip, at which Maurice stood aghast.

"But why, if you despise a person like that—why have her always about you?" he cried, at the end of a flaming plea for woman's dignity and worth.

Krafft shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose the truth is we are dependent on them—yes, dependent, from the moment we are laid in the cradle. It's a woman who puts on our first clothes and a woman who puts on our last. But why talk about these things?"—he slipped his arm through Maurice's. "Tell me about yourself; and when you are tired of talking, I will play."

It usually ended in his playing. They ranged through the highways and byways of music.

One afternoon—it was a warm, wet, grey day towards the end of August—Maurice found Krafft in a strangely apathetic mood. The weather, this moist warmth, had got on his nerves, he said; he had been unable to settle to anything; was weighed down by a lassitude heavier than iron. When Maurice entered, he was stretched on the sofa, with closed eyes; on his chest slept Wotan, the one-eyed cat, now growing sleek and fat. While Maurice was trying to rally him, Krafft sprang up. With a precipitance that was the extreme opposite of his previous sloth, he lowered both window-blinds, and, lighting two candles, set them on the piano, where they dispersed the immediate darkness, but no more.

"I am going to play TRISTAN to you."

Maurice had learnt by this time that it was useless to try to thwart Krafft. He laughed and nodded, and having nothing in particular to do, lay down in the latter's place on the sofa.

Krafft shook his hair back, and began the prelude to the opera in a rapt, ecstatic way, finding in the music an outlet for all his nervousness. At first, he played from memory; when this gave out, he set the piano-score up before him, then forgot it again, and went on playing by heart. Sometimes he sang the different parts, in a light, sweet tenor; sometimes recited them, with dramatic fervour. Only he never ceased to play, never gave his hearer a moment in which to recover himself.

Frau Schulz's entry with the lamp, and her grumblings at the "UNVERSCHAMTE SPEKTAKEL" passed unheeded. A strength that was more than human seemed to take possession of the frail youth at the piano. Evening crept on afternoon, night on evening, and still he continued, drunk with the most emotional music conceived by a human brain.

Even when hands and fingers could do no more, the frenzy that was in him would not let him rest: he paced the room, and talked—talked for hours, his eyes ablaze. A church-clock struck ten, then half-past, then eleven, and not for a moment was he still; his speech seemed, indeed, to gather impetus as it advanced like a mountain torrent.

Then, all of a sudden, in the middle of a vehement defence of anti-Semitism, to which he had been led by the misdeeds of those "arch-charlatans," Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, he stopped short, like a run-down clock, and, falling into a chair before the table, buried his face in his arms. There was silence, the more intense for all that had preceded it. Wotan wakened from sleep, and was heard to stretch his limbs, with a yawn and a sigh. The spell was broken; Maurice, his head in a whirl, rose stiff and cramped from his uncomfortable position on the sofa.

"You rascal, you make one lose all sense of time. And I am starving. I must snatch something at Canitz's as I go by."

Krafft started, and raised a haggard face with twitching lips. "You are not going to leave me?—like this?"

Maurice was both hungry and tired—worn out, in fact.

"We will go somewhere in the town," said Krafft. "And then for a walk. The rain has stopped—look!"

He drew up one of the blinds, and they saw that the stars were shining.

"Yes, but what about to-morrow?—and to-morrow's work?"

"To-morrow may never come. And to-night is."

"Those are only words. Do you know the time?"

Krafft turned quickly from the window. "And if I make it a test of the friendship you have professed for me, that you stay here with me to-night?—You can sleep on the sofa."

"Why on earth get personal?" said Maurice; he could not find his hat, which had fallen in a dark corner. "Heinz, dear boy, be reasonable. Come, give me the house-key—like a good fellow."

"It's the first—the only thing, I have asked of you."

"Nonsense. You have asked dozens."

Krafft took a few steps towards him, and threw the key on the floor at his feet. Wotan, who was at the door, mewing to be let out, sprang back, in affright.

"Go, go, go!" Krafft cried. "I never want to see you again."

Earlier than usual the next morning, Maurice returned to set things right, and to laugh with Heinz at their extravagance the night before. But Krafft was not to be seen. From Frau Schulz, who flounced past him in the passage, first with hot water, then with black coffee, Maurice learned that Krafft had been brought home early that morning, in a disgraceful state of intoxication. Frau Schulz still boiled at the remembrance.

"SO 'N SCHWEIN, SO 'N SCHWEIN!" she cried. "But this time he goes. I have said it before and, fool that I am, have always let them persuade me. But this is the end. Not a day after the fifteenth will I have him in the house."

Maurice slipped away.

Two days passed before he saw his friend again. He found him pale and dejected, with reddish, heavy eyes and a sneering smile. He was wholly changed; his words were tainted with the perverse irony, which, at the beginning of their acquaintance, had made his manner so repellent. But now, Maurice was not, at once, frightened away by it; he could not believe Heinrich's pique was serious, and gave himself trouble to win his friend back. He chid, laughed, rallied, was earnest and apologetic, and all this without being conscious of having done wrong.

"I think you had better leave him alone," said Avery, after watching his fruitless efforts. "He doesn't want you."

It was true; now Krafft had no thought for anyone but Avery. It was Avery here, and Avery there. He called her by a pet name, was anxious for her comfort, and hung affectionately on her arm.—The worst of it was, that he did not seem in the least ashamed of his fickleness.

Maurice made one further attempt to move him, then, hurt and angry, intruded no more. At first, he was chiefly angry. But, gradually, the hurt deepened, and became a sense of injury, which made him avoid the street Krafft lived in, and shun him when they met. He missed him, after the close companionship of the past weeks, and felt as if he had been suddenly deprived of a part of himself. And he would no doubt have missed him more keenly still, if, just at this juncture, his attention had not been engrossed by another and more important matter.



XIII.

The commencement of the new term had just assembled the incoming students to sign their names in the venerable rollbook, when the report spread that Schilsky was willing to play his symphonic poem, ZARATHUSTRA, to those of his friends who cared to hear it. Curiosity swelled the number, and Furst lent his house for the occasion.

"You'll come, of course," said the latter to Maurice, as they left Schwarz's room after their lesson; and Madeleine said the same thing while driving home from the railway-station, where Maurice had met her. She was no more a friend of Schilsky's than he was, but she certainly intended to be present, to hear what kind of stuff he had turned out.

On the evening of the performance, Maurice and she walked together to the BRANDVORWERKSTRASSE. Madeleine had still much to say. She had returned from her holiday in the best of health and spirits, liberally rewarded for her trouble, and possessed of four new friends, who, no doubt, would all be of use to her when she settled in England again. This was to be her last winter in Leipzig, and she was drawing up detailed plans of work. From now on, she intended to take private lessons from Schwarz, in addition to those she received in the class.

"Even though they do cost ten marks each, it makes him ever so much better disposed towards you."

She also told him that she had found a letter from Louise waiting for her, in which the latter announced her return for the following week. Louise wrote from England, and all her cry was to be back in Leipzig.

"Of course—now he is here," commented Madeleine. "You know, I suppose, that he has been travelling with Zeppelin? He has the luck of I don't know what."

The Cayhills would be absent till the middle of the month; Maurice had received from Ephie one widely written note, loud in praise of a family of "perfectly sweet Americans," whom they had learnt to know in Interlaken, but also expressing eagerness to be at home again in "dear old Leipzig." Dove had arrived a couple of days ago—and here Madeleine laughed.

"He is absolutely shiny with resolution," she declared. "Mind, Maurice, if he takes you into confidence—as he probably will—you are not on any account to dissuade him from proposing. A snub will do him worlds of good."

They were not the first to climb the ill-lighted stair that wound up to the Fursts' dwelling. The entry-door on the fourth storey stood open, and a hum of voices came from the sitting-room. The circular hat-stand in the passage was crowded with motley headgear.

As they passed the kitchen, the door of which was ajar, Frau Furst peeped through the slit, and seeing Maurice, called him in. The coffee-pot was still on the stove; he must sit down and drink a cup of coffee.

"There is plenty of time. Schilsky has not come yet, and I have only this moment sent Adolfchen for the beer."

Maurice asked her if she were not coming in to hear the music. She laughed good-naturedly at the idea.

"Bless your heart, what should I do in there, among all you young people? No, no, I can hear just as well where I am. When my good husband had his evenings, it was always from the kitchen that I listened."

Pausing, with a saucepan in one hand, a cloth in the other, she said: "You will hear something good to-night, Herr Guest. Oh, he has talent, great talent, has young Schilsky! This is not the usual work of a pupil. It has form, and it has ideas, and it is new and daring. I know one of the motives from hearing Franz play it," and she hummed a theme as she replaced on the shelf, the scrupulously cleaned pot. "For such a young man, it is wonderful; but he will do better still, depend upon it, he will."

Here she threw a hasty glance round the tiny kitchen, at three of the children sitting as still as mice in the corner, laid a finger on her lips, and, bursting with mystery, leaned over the table and asked Maurice if he could keep a secret.

"He is going away," she whispered.

Maurice stared at her. "Going away? Who is? What do you mean?" he asked, and was so struck by her peculiar manner that he set his cup down untouched.

"Why Schilsky, of course." She thought his astonishment was disbelief, and nodded confirmingly. "Yes, yes, he is going away. And soon, too."

"How do you know?" cried Maurice. Sitting back in his chair, he stemmed his hands against the edge of the table, and looked challengingly at Frau Furst.

"Ssh—not so loud," said the latter. "It's a secret, a dead secret—though I'm sure I don't know why. Franz——"

At this very moment, Franz himself came into the kitchen. He looked distrustfully at his whispering mother.

"Now then, mother, haven't you got that beer yet?" he demanded. His genial bonhomie disappeared, as if by magic, when he entered his home circle, and he was particularly gruff with this adoring woman.

"GLEICH, FRANZCHEN, GLEICH," she answered soothingly, and whisked about her work again, with the air of one caught napping.

Maurice followed Furst's invitation to join the rest of the party.

The folding-doors between the "best room" and the adjoining bedroom had been opened wide, and the guests were distributed over the two rooms. The former was brilliantly lighted by three lamps and two candles, and all the sitting-accommodation the house contained was ranged in a semicircle round the grand piano. Here, not a place was vacant; those who had come late were in the bedroom, making shift with whatever offered. Two girls and a young man, having pushed back the feather-bed, sat on the edge of the low wooden bedstead, with their arms interlaced to give them a better balance. Maurice found Madeleine on a rickety little sofa that stood at the foot of the bed. Dove sat on a chest of drawers next the sofa, his long legs dangling in the air. Beside Madeleine, with his head on her shoulder, was Krafft.

"Oh, there you are," cried Madeleine. "Well, I did my best to keep the place for you; but it was of no use, as you see. Just sit down, however. Between us, we'll squeeze him properly."

Maurice was glad that the room, which was lighted only by one small lamp, was in semi-darkness; for, at the sound of his own voice, it suddenly became clear to him that the piece of gossip Frau Furst had volunteered, had been of the nature of a blow. Schilsky's departure threatened, in a way he postponed for the present thinking out, to disturb his life; and, in an abrupt need of sympathy, he laid his hand on Krafft's knee.

"Is it you, old man? What have you been doing with yourself?"

Krafft gave him one of those looks which, in the early days of their acquaintance, had proved so disconcerting—a look of struggling recollection.

"Oh, nothing in particular," he replied, without hostility, but also without warmth. His mind was not with his words, and Maurice withdrew his hand.

Madeleine leaned forward, dislodging Krafft's head from its resting-place.

"How long have you two been 'DU' to each other?" she asked, and at Maurice's curt reply, she pushed Krafft from her. "Sit up and behave yourself. One would think you had an evil spirit in you to-night."

Krafft was nervously excited: bright red spots burnt on his cheeks, his hands twitched, and he jerked forward in his seat and threw himself back again, incessantly.

"No, you are worse than a mosquito," cried Madeleine, losing patience. "Anyone would think you were going to play yourself. And he will be as cool as an iceberg. The sofa won't stand it, Heinz. If you can't stop fidgeting, get up."

He had gone, before she finished speaking; for a slight stir in the next room made them suppose for a moment that Schilsky was arriving. Afterwards, Krafft was to be seen straying about, with his hands in his pockets; and, on observing his rose-pink cheeks and tumbled curly hair, Madeleine could not refrain from remarking: "He ought to have been a girl."

The air was already hot, by reason of the lamps, and the many breaths, and the firmly shut double-windows. The clamour for beer had become universal by the time Adolfchen arrived with his arms full of bottles. As there were not enough glasses to go round, every two or three persons shared one between them—a proceeding that was carried out with much noisy mirth. Above all other voices was to be heard that of Miss Jensen, who, in a speckled yellow dress, with a large feather fan in her hand, sat in the middle of the front row of seats. It was she who directed how the beer should be apportioned; she advised a few late-comers where they would still find room, and engaged Furst to place the lights on the piano to better advantage. Next her, a Mrs. Lautenschlager, a plump little American lady, with straight yellow hair which hung down on her shoulders, was relating to her neighbour on the other side, in a tone that could be clearly heard in both rooms, how she had "discovered" her voice.

"I come to Schwarz, last fall," she said shaking back her hair, and making effective use of her babyish mouth; "and he thinks no end of me. But the other week I was sick, and as I lay in bed, I sung some—just for fun. And my landlady—she's a regular singer herself—who was fixing up the room, she claps her hands together and says: 'My goodness me! Why YOU have a voice!' That's what put it in my head, and I went to Sperling to hear what he'd got to say. He was just tickled to death, I guess he was, and he's going to make something dandy of it, so I stop long enough. I don't know what my husband'll say though. When I wrote him I was sick, he says: 'Come home and be sick at home'—that's what he says."

Miss Jensen could not let pass the opportunity of breaking a lance for her own master, the Swede, and of cutting up Sperling's method, which she denounced as antiquated. She made quite a little speech, in the course of which she now and then interrupted herself to remind Furst—who, was as soft as a pudding before her—of something he had forgotten to do, such as snuffing the candles or closing the door.

"Just let me hear your scale, will you?" she said patronisingly to Mrs. Lautenschlager. The latter, nothing loath, stuck out her chin, opened her mouth, and, for a short time, all other noises were drowned in a fine, full volume of voice.

On their sofa, Madeleine and Maurlee sat in silence, pretending to listen to Dove, who was narrating his journey. Madeleine was out of humour; she tapped the floor, and had a crease in her forehead. As for Maurice, he was in such poor spirits that she could not but observe it.

"Why are you so quiet? Is anything the matter?"

He shook his head, without speaking. His vague sense of impending misfortune had crystallised into a definite thought; he knew now what it signified. If Schilsky went away from Leipzig, Louise would probably go, too, and that would be the end of everything.

"I represented to him," he heard Dove saying, "that I had seen the luggage with my own eyes at Flushing. What do you think he answered? He looked me up and down, and said: 'ICH WERDE TELEGRAPHIEREN UND ERKUNDIGUNGEN EINZIEHEN.' Now, do you think if you said to an English station-master: 'Sir, I saw the luggage with my own eyes,' he would not believe you? No, in my opinion, the whole German railway-system needs revision. Would you believe it, we did not make fifty kilometers in the hour, and yet our engine broke down before Magdeburg?"

So this would be the end; the end of foolish dreams and weak hopes, which he had never put into words even to himself, which had never properly existed, and yet had been there, nevertheless, a mass of gloriously vague perhapses. The end was at hand—an end before there had been any beginning.

"... the annoyance of the perpetual interruptions," went on the voice on the other side. "A lady who was travelling in the same compartment—a very pleasant person, who was coming over to be a teacher in a school in Dresden—I have promised to show her our lions when she visits Leipzig: well, as I was saying, she was quite alarmed the first time he entered in that way, and it took me some time, I assure you, to make her believe that this was the German method of revising tickets."

The break occasioned by the arrival of the beer had been of short duration, and the audience was growing impatient; at the back of the room, some one began to stamp his feet; others took it up. Furst perspired with anxiety, and made repeated journeys to the stair-head, to see if Schilsky were not coming. The latter was almost an hour late by now, and jests, bald and witty, were made at his expense. Some one offered to take a bet that he had fallen asleep and forgotten the appointment, and at this, one of the girls on the bed, a handsome creature with bold, prominent eyes, related an anecdote to her neighbours, concerning Schilsky's powers of sleep. All three exploded with laughter. In a growing desire to be asked to play, Boehmer had for some time hung about the piano, and was now just about to drop, as if by accident, upon the stool, when the cry of: "No Bach!" was raised—Bach was Boehmer's specialty—and re-echoed, and he retired red and discomfited to his Place in a corner of the room, where his companion, a statuesque little English widow, made biting observations on the company's behaviour. The general rowdyism was at its height, when some one had the happy idea that Krafft should sing them his newest song. At this, there was a unanimous shriek of approval, and several hands dragged Krafft to the piano. But himself the wildest of them all, he needed no forcing. Flinging himself down on the seat, he preluded wildly in imitation of Rubinstein. His hearers sat with their mouths open, a fixed smile on their faces, laughter ready in their throats, and only Madeleine was coolly contemptuous.

"Tom-fool!" she said in a low voice.

Krafft was confidently expected to burst into one of those songs for which he was renowned. Few of his friends were able to sing them, and no one but himself could both sing and play them simultaneously: they were a monstrous, standing joke. Instead of this, however, he turned, winked at his audience, and began a slow, melancholy ditty, with a recurring refrain. He was not allowed to finish the first verse; a howl of disapproval went up; his hearers hooted, jeered and stamped.

"Sick cats!"

"Damn your 'WENIG SONNE!'"—this was the refrain.

"Put your head in a bag!"

"Pity he drinks!"

"Give us one of the rousers—the rou ... sers!"

Krafft himself laughed unbridledly. "DAS ICH SPRICHT!"—he announced. "In C sharp major."

There was a hush of anticipation, in which Dove, stopping his BRETZEL half-way to his mouth, was heard to say in his tone of measured surprise: "C sharp major! Why, that is——"

The rest was drowned in the wild chromatic passages that Krafft sent up and down the piano with his right hand, while his left followed with full-bodied chords, each of which exceeded the octave. Before, however, there was time to laugh, this riot ceased, and became a mournful cadence, to the slowly passing harmonies of which, Krafft sang:

I am weary of everything that is, under the sun. I sicken at the long lines of rain, which are black against the sky; They drip, for a restless heart, with the drip of despair: For me, winds must rage, trees bend, and clouds sail stormily.

The whirlwind of the prelude commenced anew; the chords became still vaster; the player swayed from side to side, like a stripling-tree in a storm. Madeleine said, "Tch!" in disgust, but the rest of the company, who had only waited for this, burst into peals of laughter; some bent double in their seats, some leant back with their chins in the air. Even Dove smiled. Just, however, as those whose sense of humour was most highly developed, mopped their faces with gestures of exhaustion, and assured their neighbours that they "could not, really could not laugh any more," Furst entered and flapped his hands.

"Here he comes!"

A sudden silence fell, broken only by a few hysterical giggles from the ladies, and by a frivolous American, who cried: "Now for ALSO SCHRIE ZENOPHOBIA!" Krafft stopped playing, but remained sitting at the piano, wiping down the keys with his handkerchief.

Schilsky came in, somewhat embarrassed by the lull which had succeeded the hubbub heard in the passage, but wholly unconcerned at the lateness of the hour: except in matters of practical advancement, time did not exist for him. As soon as he appeared, the two ladies in the front row began to clap their hands; the rest of the company followed their example, then, in spite of Furst's efforts to prevent it, rose and crowded round him. Miss Jensen and her friend made themselves particularly conspicuous. Mrs Lauterischlager had an infatuation for the young man, of which she made no secret; she laid her hand caressingly on his coat-sleeve, and put her face as near his as propriety admitted.

"Disgusting, the way those women go on with him!" said Madeleine. "And what is worse, he likes it."

Schilsky listened to the babble of compliments with that mixture of boyish deference and unequivocal superiority, which made him so attractive to women. He was too good-natured to interrupt them and free himself, and would have stood as long as they liked, if Furst had not come to the rescue and led him to the piano. Schilsky laid his hand affectionately on Krafft's shoulder, and Krafft sprang up in exaggerated surprise. The audience took its seats again; the thick manuscript-score was set up on the music-rack, and the three young men at the piano had a brief disagreement with one another about turning the leaves: Krafft was bent on doing it, and Schilsky objected, for Krafft had a way of forgetting what he was at in the middle of a page. Krafft flushed, cast an angry look at his friend, and withdrew, in high dudgeon, to a corner.

Standing beside the piano, so turned to those about him that the two on the sofa in the next room only saw him sideways, and ill at that, Schilsky gave a short description of his work. He was nervous, which aggravated his lisp, and he spoke so rapidly and in such a low voice that no one but those immediately in front of him, could understand what he said. But it did not matter in the least; all present had come only to hear the music; they knew and cared nothing about Zarathustra and his spiritual development; and one and all waited impatiently for Schilsky to stop speaking. The listeners in the bedroom——merely caught disjointed words—WERDEGANG, NOTSCHREI, TARANTELN—but not one was curious enough even to lean forward in his seat. Madeleine made sarcastic inward comments on the behaviour of the party.

"It's perfectly clear to you, I suppose," she could not refrain from observing as, at the finish, Dove sagely wagged his head in agreement.

It transpired that there was an ode to be sung before the last section of the composition, and a debate ensued who, should sing it. The two ladies in the front had quite a little quarrel—without knowing anything about the song—as to which of their voices would best suit it. Schilsky was silent for a moment, tapping his fingers, then said suddenly: "Come on, Heinz," and looked at Krafft. But the latter, who was standing morose, with folded arms, did not move. He had a dozen reasons why he should not sing; he had a cold, was hoarse, was out of practice, could not read the music from sight.

"Good Heavens, what a fool Heinz is making of himself tonight!" said Madeleine.

But Schilsky thumped his fist on the lid, and said, if Krafft did not sing it, no one should; and that was the end of the matter. Krafft was pulled to the piano.

Schilsky took his seat, and, losing his nervousness as soon as he touched the keys, preluded firmly and easily, with his large, white hands. Now, every one leaned forward to see him better; especially the ladies threw themselves into positions from which they could watch hair and hands, and the slender, swaying figure.

"Isn't he divine?" said the bold-eyed girl on the bed, in a loud whisper, and hung upon her companion's neck in an ecstatic attitude.

After the diversity of noises which had hitherto interfered with his thinking connectedly, Maurice welcomed the continuous sound of the music, which went on without a break. He sat in a listening attitude, shading his eyes with his hand. Through his fingers, he surreptitiously watched the player. He had never before had an opportunity of observing Schilsky so closely, and, with a kind of blatant generosity, he now pointed out to himself each physical detail that he found prepossessing in the other, every feature that was likely to attract—in the next breath, only to struggle with his honest opinion that the composer was a slippery, loose-jointed, caddish fellow, who could never be proved to be worthy of Louise. But he was too down-hearted at what he had learnt in the course of the evening, to rise to any active feeling of dislike.

Intermittently he heard, in spite of himself, something of Schilsky's music; but he was not in a frame of mind to understand or to retain any impression of it. He was more effectively jerked out of his preoccupation by single spoken words, which, from time to time, struck his ear: this was Furst, who, in the absence of a programme, announced from his seat beside Schilsky, the headings of the different sections of the work: WERDEGANG; SEILTANZER—here Maurice saw Dove conducting with head and hand—NOTSCHREI; SCHWERMUT; TARANTELN—and here again, but vaguely, as if at a distance, he heard suppressed laughter. But he was thoroughly roused when Krafft, picking up a sheet of music and coming round to the front of the piano, began to sing DAS TRUNKENE LIED. By way of introduction, the low F in the bass of F minor sounded persistently, at syncopated intervals; Schilsky inclined his head, and Krafft sang, in his sweet, flute-like voice:

Oh, Mensch! Gieb Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? "Ich schlief, ich schlief, Aus tiefem Schlaf bin ich erwacht: Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht."

—the last phrase of which was repeated by the accompaniment, a semitone higher.

Tief ist ihr Weh, Lust—tiefer noch als Herzeleid:

As far as this, the voice had been supported by simple, full-sounding harmonies. Now, from out the depths, still of F minor, rose a hesitating theme, which seemed to grope its way: in imagination, one heard it given out by the bass strings; then the violas reiterated it, and dyed it purple; voice and violins sang it together; the high little flutes carried it up and beyond, out of reach, to a half close.

Weh spricht: vergeh!

Suddenly and unexpectedly, there entered a light yet mournful phrase in F major, which was almost a dance-rhythm, and seemed to be a small, frail pleading for something not rightly understood.

Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit, Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit.

The innocent little theme passed away, and the words were sung again to a stern and fateful close in D flat major.

The concluding section of the work returned to these motives, developed them, gathered them together, grouped them and interchanged them, in complicated thermatic counterpoint. Schilsky was barely able to cope with the difficulties of the score; he exerted himself desperately, laboured with his head and his whole body, and surmounted sheerly unplayable parts with the genial slitheriness that is the privilege of composers.

When, at last, he crashed to a close and wiped his face in exhaustion, there was a deafening uproar of applause. Loud cries were uttered and exclamations of enthusiasm; people rose from their seats and crowded round the piano to congratulate the player. Mrs. Lautenschlager could not desist from kissing his hand. A tall, thin Russian girl in spectacles, who had assiduously taken notes throughout, asked in a loud voice, and her peculiar, hoppy German, for information about the orchestration. What use had he made of the cymbals? She trusted a purely Wagnerian one. Schilsky hastened to reopen the score, and sat himself to answer the question earnestly and at length.

"Come, Maurice, let us go," said Madeleine, rising and shaking the creases from her skirt. "There will be congratulations enough. He won't miss ours."

Maurice had had an idea of lingering till everybody else had gone, on the chance of picking up fresh facts. But he was never good at excuses. So they slipped out into the passage, followed by Dove; but while the latter was looking for his hat, Madeleine pulled Maurice down the stairs.

"Quick, let us go!" she whispered; and, as they heard him coming after them, she drew her companion down still further, to the cellar flight, where they remained hidden until Dove had passed them, and his steps had died away in the street.

"We should have had nothing but his impressions and opinions all the way home," she said, as they emerged. "He was bottled up from having to keep quiet so long—I saw it in his face. And I couldn't stand it to-night. I'm in a bad temper, as you may have observed—or perhaps you haven't."

No, he had not noticed it.

"Well, you would have, if you hadn't been so taken up with yourself. What on earth is the matter with you?"

He feigned surprise: and they walked in silence down one street and into the next. Then she spoke again. "Do you know—but you're sure not to know that either—you gave me a nasty turn to-night?"

"I?" His surprise was genuine this time.

"Yes, you—when I heard you say 'DU' to Heinz."

He looked at her in astonishment; but she was not in a hurry to continue. They walked another street-length, and all she said was: "How refreshing the air is after those stuffy rooms!"

As they turned a corner however, she made a fresh start.

"I think it's rather hard on me," she said, and laughed as she spoke. "Here am I again, having to lecture you! The fact is, I suppose, one's METIER clings to one, in spite of oneself. But there must be something about you, too, Maurice Guest, that makes one want to do it—want to look after you, so to speak—as if you couldn't be trusted to take care of yourself. Well, it disturbed me to-night, to see how intimate you and Heinz have got."

"Is that all? Why on earth should that trouble you? And anyhow," he added, "the whole affair came about without any wish of mine."

"How?" she demanded; and when he had told her: "And since then?"

He went into detail, coolly, without the resentment he had previously felt towards Krafft.

"And that's all?"

"Isn't it enough—for a fellow to go on in that way?"

"And you feel aggrieved?"

"No, not now. At first I was rather sore, though, for Heinz is an interesting fellow, and we were very thick for a time."

"Yes, of course—until Schilsky comes back. As soon as he appears on the scene, Master Heinz gives you the cold shoulder. Or perhaps you didn't know that Heinz is the attendant spirit of that heaven-born genius?"

Maurice did not reply, and when she spoke again, it was with renewed seriousness. "Believe me, Maurice, he is no friend for you. It's not only that you ought to be above letting yourself be treated in this way, but Heinz's friendship won't do you any good. He belongs to a bad set here—and Schilsky, too. If you were long with Heinz, you would be bound to get drawn into it, and then it would be good-bye to anything you might have done—to work and success. No, take my advice—it's sincerely meant—and steer clear of Heinz."

Maurice smiled to himself at her womanly idea of Krafft leading him to perdition. "But you're fond of him yourself, Madeleine," he said. "You can't help liking him either."

"I daresay I can't. But that is quite a different matter—quite;" and as if more than enough had now been said, she abruptly left the subject.

Before going home that night, Maurice made the old round by way of the BRUDERSTRASSE, and stood and looked up at the closed windows behind which Louise lived. The house was dark, and as still as was the deserted street. Only the Venetian blinds seemed to be faintly alive; the outer windows, removed for the summer, had not yet been replaced, and a mild wind flapped the blinds, just as it swayed the tops of the trees in the opposite garden. There was a breath of autumn in the air. He told himself aloud, in the nightly silence, that she was going away—as if by repeating the words, he might ultimately grow used to their meaning. The best that could be hoped for was that she would not go immediately, but would remain in Leipzig for a few weeks longer. Then a new fear beset him. What if she never came back again?—if she had left the place quietly, of set purpose?—if these windows were closed for good and all? A dryness invaded his throat at the possibility, and on the top of this evening of almost apathetic resignation to the inevitable, the knowledge surged up in him that all he asked was to be allowed to see her just once more. Afterwards, let come what might. Once again, he must stand face to face with her—must stamp a picture of her on his brain, to carry with him for ever.

For ever!—And through his feverish sleep ran, like a thread, the words he had heard Krafft sing, of an eternity that was deep and dreamless, a joy without beginning or end.



Madeleine had waved her umbrella at him. He crossed the road to where she was standing in rain-cloak and galoshes. She wished to tell him that the date of her playing in the ABENDUNTERHALTUNG had been definitely fixed. About to go, she said:

"Louise is back—did you know?"

Of course he knew, though he did not tell her so—knew almost the exact hour at which the blinds had been drawn up, the windows opened, and a flower-pot, in a gaudy pink paper, put out on the sill.

Not many days after this, he came upon Louise herself. She was standing talking, at a street-corner, to the shabby little Englishman, Eggis, with whom she had walked the FOYER of the theatre. Maurice was about to bow and pass by, but she smiled and held out her hand.

"You are back, too, then? To-day I am meeting all my friends."

She had fur about her neck, although the weather was not really cold, and her face rose out of this setting like a flower from its cup.

This meeting, and the few cordial words she had spoken, helped him over the days that followed. Sometimes, while he waited for the blow to fall, his daily life grew very unimportant; things that had hitherto interested him, now went past like shadows; he himself was a mere automaton. But sometimes, too, and especially after he had seen Louise, and touched her living hand, he wondered whether he were not perhaps tormenting himself unnecessarily. Nothing more had come to light; no one had hinted by a word at Schilsky's departure; it might yet prove to be all a mistake.

Then, however, he received a postcard from Madeleine, saying that she had something interesting to tell him. He went too early, and spent a quarter of an hour pacing her room. When she entered, she threw him a look, and, before she had finished taking off her wraps, said:

"Maurice, I have a piece of news for you. Schilsky is going away."

He nodded; his throat was dry.

"Why, you don't mean to say you knew?" she cried, and paused half-way out of her jacket.

Maurice went to the window, and stood with his back to her. In one of the houses opposite, at a window on the same level, a girl was practising the violin; his eyes followed the mechanical movements of the bow.

He cleared his throat. "Do you—Is it likely—I mean, do you think?——"

Madeleine understood him. "Yes, I do. Louise won't stay here a day longer than he does; I'm sure of that."

But otherwise she knew no more than Maurice; and she did not offer to detain him, when, a few minutes later, he alleged a pressing appointment. Madeleine was annoyed, and showed it; she had come in with the intention of being kind to him, of encouraging him, and discussing the matter sympathetically, and it now turned out that not only had he known it all the time, but had also kept it a secret from her. She did not like underhand ways, especially in people whom she believed she knew inside out.

Now that the pledge of secrecy had been removed from him, Maurice felt that he wanted facts; and, without thinking more about it than if he had been there the day before, he climbed the stairs that led to Krafft's lodging.

He found him at supper; Avery was present, too, and on the table sat Wotan, who was being regaled with strips of skin off the sausage. Krafft greeted Maurice with a touch of his former effusiveness; for he was in a talkative mood, and needed an audience. At his order, Avery put an extra plate on the table, and Maurice had to share their meal. It was not hard for him to lead Krafft round to the desired subject. It seemed that one of the masters in the Conservatorium had expressed a very unequivocal opinion of Schilsky's talents as a composer, and Krafft was now sarcastic, now merry, at this critic's expense. Maurice laid down his knife, and, in the first break, asked abruptly: "When does he go?"

"Go?—who?" said Krafft indifferently, tickling Wotan's nose with a piece of skin which he held out of reach.

"Who?—why, Schilsky, of course."

It sounded as if another than he had said the words: they were so short and harsh. The plate Avery was holding fell to the floor. Krafft sat back in his chair, and stared at Maurice, with a face that was all eyes.

"You knew he was going away?—or didn't you?" asked Maurice in a rough voice. "Every one knows. The whole place knows."

Krafft laughed. "The whole place knows: every one knows," he repeated. "Every one, yes—every one but me. Every one but me, who had most right to know. Yes, I alone had the right; for no one has loved him as I have."

He rose from the table, knocking over his chair. "Or else it is not true?"

"Yes, it is true. Then you didn't know?" said Maurice, bewildered by the outburst he had evoked.

"No, we didn't know." It was Avery who spoke. She was on her knees, picking up the pieces of the plate with slow, methodical fingers.

Krafft stood hesitating. Then he went to the piano, opened it, adjusted the seat, and made all preparations for playing. But with his fingers ready on the keys, he changed his mind and, instead, laid his arms on the folded rack and his head on his arms. He did not stir again, and a long silence followed. The only sound that was to be heard came from Wotan, who, sitting on his haunches on a corner of the table, washed the white fur of his belly with an audible swish.



XIV.

Whistling to him to stop, Furst ran the length of a street-block after Maurice, as the latter left the Conservatorium.

"I say, Guest," he said breathlessly, on catching up with him. "Look here, I just wanted to tell you, you must be sure and join us to-night. We are going to give Schilsky a jolly send-off."

They stood at the corner of the WACHTERSTRASSE; it was a blowy day. Maurice replied evasively, with his eyes on the unbound volume of Beethoven that Furst was carrying; its tattered edges moved in the wind.

"When does he go?" he asked, without any show of concern.

Furst looked warily round him, and dropped his voice. "Well, look here, Guest, I don't mind telling you," he said; he was perspiring from his run, and dried his neck and face. "I don't mind telling you; you won't pass it on; for he has his reasons—family or domestic reasons, if one may say so, tra-la-la!"—he winked, and nudged Maurice with his elbow—"for not wanting it to get about. It's deuced hard on him that it should have leaked out at all. I don't know how it happened; for I was mum, 'pon my honour, I was."

"Yes. And when does he go?" repeated his hearer with the same want of interest.

"To-morrow morning early, by the first train."

Now to be rid of him! But it was never easy to get away from Furst, and since Maurice had declared his intention of continuing to take lessons from him, as good as impossible. Furst was overpowering in his friendliness, and on this particular occasion, there was no escape for Maurice before he had promised to make one of the party that was to meet that night, at a restaurant in the town. Then he bluffly alleged an errand in the PLAGWITZERSTRASSE, and went off in an opposite direction to that which his companion had to take.

As soon as Furst was out of sight, he turned into the path that led to the woods. Overhead, the sky was a monotonous grey expanse, and a soft, moist wind drove in gusts, before which, on the open meadow-land, he bent his head. It was a wind that seemed heavy with unfallen rain; a melancholy wind, as the day itself was melancholy, in its faded colours, and cloying mildness. With his music under his arm, Maurice walked to the shelter of the trees. Now that he had learnt the worst, a kind of numbness came over him; he had felt so intensely in the course of the past week that, now the crisis was there, he seemed destitute of feeling.

His feet bore him mechanically to his favourite seat, and here he remained, with his head in his hands, his eyes fixed on the trodden gravel of the path. He had to learn, once and for all, that, by tomorrow, everything would be over; for, notwithstanding the wretchedness of the past days, he was as far off as ever from understanding. But he was loath to begin; he sat in a kind of torpor, conscious only of the objects his eyes rested on: some children had built a make-believe house of pebbles, with a path leading up to the doorway, and at this he gazed, estimating the crude architectural ideas that had occurred to the childish builders. He felt the wind in his hair, and listened to the soothing noise it made, high above his head. But gradually overcoming this physical dullness, his mind began to work again. With a sudden vividness, he saw himself as he had walked these very woods, seven months before; he remembered the brilliant colouring of the April day, and the abundance of energy that had possessed him. Then, on looking into the future, all his thoughts had been of strenuous endeavour and success. Now, success was a word like any other, and left him cold.

For a long time, in place of passing on to his real preoccupation, he considered this, brooding over the change that had come about in him. Was it, he asked himself, because he had so little whole-hearted endurance, that when once a thing was within his grasp, that grasp slackened? Was it that he was able to make the effort required for a leap, then, the leap over, could not right himself again? He believed that the slackening interest, the inability to fix his attention, which he had had to fight against of late, must have some such deeper significance; for his whole nature—the inherited common sense of generations—rebelled against tracing it back to the day on which he had seen a certain face for the first time. It was too absurd to be credible that because a slender, dark-eyed girl had suddenly come within his range of vision, his life should thus lose form and purpose—incredible and unnatural as well—and, in his present mood, he would have laughed at the suggestion that this was love. To his mind, love was something frank and beautiful, made for daylight and the sun; whereas his condition was a source of mortification to him. To love, without any possible hope of return; to love, knowing that the person you loved regarded you with less than indifference, and, what was worse, that this person was passionately attached to another man—no, there was something indelicate about it, at which his blood revolted. It was the kind of thing that it suited poets to make tragedies of, but it did not—should not—happen in sober, daily life. And if, as it seemed in this case, it was beyond mortal's power to prevent it, then the only fitting thing to do was promptly to make an end. And because, over the approach of this end, he suffered, he now called himself hard names. What had he expected? Had he really believed that matters could always dally on, in this pleasant, torturous way? Would he always have been content to be third party, and miserable outsider? No; the best that could happen to him was now happening; let the coming day once be past, let a very few weeks have run their course, and the parting would have lost its sting; he would be able to look back, regretfully no doubt, but as on something done with, irrecoverable. Then he would apply himself to his work with all his heart; and it would be possible to think of her, and remember her, calmly. If once an end were put to these daily chances of seeing her, which perpetually fanned his unrest, all would go well.

And yet ... did he close his eyes and let her face rise up before him—her sweet, white face, with the unfathomable eyes, and pale, sensuous mouth—he was shaken by an emotion that knocked his resolutions as flat as a breath knocks a house of cards. It was not love, nor anything to do with love, this he could have sworn to: it was merely the strange physical effect her presence, or the remembrance of her presence, had had upon him, from the first day on: a tightening of all centres, a heightening of all faculties, an intense hope, and as intense a despair. And in this moment, he confessed to himself that he would have been over-happy to live on just as he had been doing, if only sometimes he might see her. He needed her, as he had never felt the need of anyone before; his nature clamoured for her, imperiously, as it clamoured for light and air. He had no concern with anyone but her—her only—and he could not let her go. It was not love; it was a bodily weakness, a pitiable infirmity: he even felt it degrading that another person should be able to exercise such an influence over him, that there should be a part of himself over which he had no control. Not to see her, not to be able to gather fresh strength from each chance meeting, meant that the grip life had of him would relax—he grew sick even at the thought of how, in some unknown place, in the midst of strangers, she would go on living, and giving her hand and her smile to other people, while he would never see her again. And he said her name aloud to himself, as if he were in bodily pain, or as if the sound of it might somehow bring him aid: he inwardly implored whatever fate was above him to give him the one small chance he asked—the chance of fair play.

The morning passed, without his knowing it. When, considerably after his usual dinner-hour, he was back in his room, he looked at familiar objects with unseeing eyes. He was not conscious of hunger, but going into the kitchen begged for a cup of the coffee that could be smelt brewing on Frau Krause's stove. When he had drunk this, a veil seemed to lift from his brain; he opened and read a letter from home, and was pricked by compunction at the thought that, except for a few scales run hastily that morning, he had done no work. But while he still stood, with his arm on the lid of the piano, an exclamation rose to his lips; and taking up his hat, he went down the stairs again, and out into the street. What was he thinking of? If he wished to see Louise once more, his place was under her windows, or in those streets she would be likely to pass through.

He walked up and down before the house in the BRUDERSTRASSE, sometimes including a side street, in order to avoid making himself conspicuous; putting on a hurried air, if anyone looked curiously at him; lingering for a quarter of an hour on end, in the shadow of a neighbouring doorway. Gradually, yet too quickly, the grey afternoon wore to a close. He had paced to and fro for an hour now, but not a trace of her had he seen; nor did even a light burn in her room when darkness fell. A fear lest she should have already gone away, beset him again, and got the upper hand of him; and wild schemes flitted through his mind. He would mount the stairs, and ring the door-bell, on some pretext or other, to learn whether she was still there; and his foot was on the lowest stair, when his courage failed him, and he turned back. But the idea had taken root; he could not bear much longer the uncertainty he was in; and so, towards seven o'clock, when he had hung about for three hours, and there was still no sign of life in her room, he went boldly up the broad, winding stair and rang the bell. When the door was opened, he would find something to say.

The bell, which he had pulled hard, pealed through the house, jangled on, and, in a series of after-tinkles, died away. There was no immediate answering sound; the silence persisted, and having waited for some time, he rang again. Then, in the distance, he heard a door creak; soft, cautious footsteps crept along the passage; a light moved; the glass window in the upper half of the door was opened, and a little old woman peered out, holding a candle above her head. On seeing the pale face close before her, she drew back, and made as if to shut the window; for, as a result of poring over newspapers, she lived in continual expectation of robbery and murder.

"She is not at home," she said with tremulous bravado, in answer to the young man's question, and again was about to close the window. But Maurice thrust in his hand, and she could not shut without crushing it.

"Then she is still here? Has she gone out? When will she be back?" he queried.

"How should I know? And look here, young man, if you don't take away your hand and leave the house at once, I shall call from the window for a policeman."

He went slowly down the stairs and across the street, and took up anew his position in the dark doorway—a proceeding which did not reassure Fraulein Grunhut, who, regarding his inquiries as a feint, was watching his movements from between the slats of a window-blind. But Maurice had not stood again for more than a quarter of an hour, when a feeling of nausea seized him, and this reminded him that he had practically eaten nothing since the morning. If he meant to hold out, he must snatch a bite of food somewhere; afterwards, he would return and wait, if he had to wait all night.

In front of the PANORAMA on the ROSSPLATZ, he ran into the arms of Furst, and the latter, when he heard where Maurice was going, had nothing better to do than to accompany him, and drink a SCHNITT. Furst, who was in capital spirits at the prospect of the evening, laughed heartily, told witty anecdotes, and slapped his fat thigh, the type of rubicund good-humour; and as he was not of an observant turn of mind, he did not notice his companion's abstraction. Hardly troubling to dissemble, Maurice paid scant attention to Furst's talk; he ate avidly, and as soon as he had finished, pushed back his chair and called to the waiter for his bill.

"I must go," he said, and rose. "I have something important to do this evening, and can't join you."

Furst, cut short in the middle of a sentence, let his double chin fall on his collar, and gazed open-mouthed at his companion.

"But I say, Guest, look here!..." Maurice heard him expostulate as the outer door slammed behind him.

He made haste to retrace his steps. The wind had dropped; a fine rain was beginning to fall; it promised to be a wet night, of empty streets and glistening pavements. There was no visible change in the windows of the BRUDERSTRASSE; they were as blankly dark as before. Turning up his coat-collar, Maurice resumed his patrollings, but more languidly; he was drowsy from having eaten, and the air was chill. A weakness overcame him at the thought of the night-watch he had set himself; it seemed impossible to endure the crawling past of still more hours. He was tired to exhaustion, and a sudden, strong desire arose in him, somehow, anyhow, to be taken out of himself, to have his thoughts diverted into other channels. And this feeling grew upon him with such force, the idea of remaining where he was, for another hour, became so intolerable, that he forgot everything else, and turned and ran back towards the PANORAMA, only afraid lest Furst should have gone without him.

The latter was, in fact, just coming out of the door. He stared in astonishment at Maurice.

"I've changed my mind," said Maurice, without apology. "Shall we go? Where's the place?"

Furst mumbled something inaudible; he was grumpy at the other's behaviour. Scanning him furtively, and noting his odd, excited manner, he concluded that Maurice had been drinking.

They walked without speaking; Furst hummed to himself. In the thick-sown, business thoroughfare, the BRUHL, they entered a dingy cafe and while Furst chattered with the landlord and BUFFETDAME, with both of whom he was on very friendly terms, Maurice went into the side-room, where the KNEIPE was to be held, and sat down before a long, narrow table, spread with a soiled red and blue-checked tablecloth. He felt cold and sick again, and when the wan PICCOLO set a beer-mat before him, he sent the lad to the devil for a cognac. The waiter came with the liqueur-bottle; Maurice drank the contents of one and then another of the tiny glasses. A genial warmth ran through him and his nausea ceased. He leaned his head on his hands, closed his eyes, and, soothed by the heat of the room, had a few moments' pleasant lapse of consciousness.

He was roused by the entrance of a noisy party of three. These were strangers to him, and when they had mentioned their names and learned his, they sat down at the other end of the table and talked among themselves. They were followed by a couple of men known to Maurice by sight. One, an Italian, a stout, animated man, with prominent jet-black eyes and huge white teeth, was a fellow-pupil of Schilsky's, and a violinist of repute, notwithstanding the size and fleshiness of his hands, which were out of all proportion to the delicate build of his instrument. The other was a slender youth of fantastic appearance. He wore a long, old-fashioned overcoat, which reached to his heels, and was moulded to a shapely waist; on his fingers were numerous rings; his bushy hair was scented and thickly curled, his face painted and pencilled like a woman's. He did not sit down, but, returning to the public room, leaned over the counter and talked to the BUFFETDAME, in a tone which had nothing in common with Furst's hearty familiarity.

Next came a couple of Americans, loud, self-assertive, careless of dress and convention; close behind them still another group, and at its heels, Dove. The latter entered the room with an apologetic air, and on sitting down at the head of the table, next Maurice, mentioned at once that, at heart, he was not partial to this kind of thing, and was only there because he believed the present to be an exceptional occasion: who knew but what, in after years, he might not be proud to claim having, made one of the party on this particular evening?—the plain truth being that Schilsky was little popular with his own sex, and, in consequence of the difficulty of beating up a round dozen of men, Furst had been forced to be very pressing in his invitations, to have recourse to bribes and promises, or, as in the case of Dove, to stimulating the imagination. The majority of the guests present were not particular who paid for their drink, provided they got it.

At Krafft's entry, a stifled laugh went round. To judge from his appearance, he had not been in bed the previous night: sleep seemed to hang on his red and sunken eyelids; his hands and face were dirty, and when he took off his coat, which he had worn turned up at the neck, it was seen that he had either lost or forgotten his collar. Shirt and waistcoat were insufficiently buttoned. His walk was steady, but his eyes had a glassy stare, and did not seem to see what they rested on. A strong odour of brandy went out from him; but he had not been many minutes in the room before a stronger and more penetrating smell made itself felt. The rest of the company began to sniff and ejaculate, and Furst, having tracked it to the corner where the overcoats hung, drew out of one of Krafft's pockets a greasy newspaper parcel, evidently some days old, containing bones, scraps of decaying meat, and rancid fish. The PICCOLO, summoned by a general shout, was bade to dispose of the garbage instantly, and to hang the coat in a draughty place to air. Various epithets were hurled at Krafft, who, however, sat picking his teeth with unconcern, as if what went on around him had nothing to do with him.

They were now all collected but Schilsky, and much beer had been drunk. Furst was in his usual state of agitation lest his friend should forget to keep the appointment; and the spirits of those—there were several such present—who suffered almost physical pain from seeing another than themselves the centre of interest, went up by leaps and bounds. But at this juncture, Schilsky's voice was heard in the next room. It was raised and angry; it snarled at a waiter. Significant glances flew round the table: for the young man's outbursts of temper were well known to all. He entered, making no response to the greetings that were offered him, displaying his anger with genial indifference to what others thought of him. To the PICCOLO he tossed coat and hat, and swore at the boy for not catching them. Then he let his loose-limbed body down on the vacant chair, and drank off the glass of PILSENER that was set before him.

There was a pause of embarrassment. The next moment, however, several men spoke at once: Furst continued a story he was telling, some one else capped it, and the mirth these anecdotes provoked was more than ordinarily uproarious. Schilsky sat silent, letting his sullen mouth hang, and tapping the table with his fingers. Meanwhile, he emptied one glass of beer after another. The PICCOLO could hardly cope with the demands that were made on him, and staggered about, top-heavy, with his load of glasses.

But it was impossible to let the evening pass as flatly as this; besides, as the general hilarity increased, it made those present less sensitive to the mood of the guest of honour. Furst was a born speaker, and his heart was full. So, presently, he rose to his feet, struck his glass, and, in spite of Schilsky's deepening scowl, held a flowery speech about his departing friend. The only answer Schilsky gave was a muttered request to cease making an idiot of himself.

This was going rather too far; but no one protested, except Ford, the pianist, who said in English: "Speesch? Call that a speesch?"

Furst, inclined in the first moment of rebuff to be touchy, allowed his natural goodness of heart to prevail. He leaned forward, and said, not without pathos: "Old man, we are all your friends here. Something's the matter. Tell us what it is."

Before Schilsky could reply, Krafft awakened from his apparent stupor to say with extreme distinctness: "I'll tell you. There's been the devil to pay."

"Now, chuck it, Krafft!" cried one or two, not without alarm at the turn things might take.

But Schilsky, whose anger had begun to subside under the influence of the two litres he had drunk, said slowly and thickly: "Let him be. What he says is the truth—gospel truth."

"Oh, say, that's to' bad!" cried one of the Americans—a lean man, with the mouth and chin of a Methodist.

All kept silence now, in the hope that Schilsky would continue. As he did not, but sat brooding, Furst, in his role of peacemaker, clapped him on the back. "Well, forget it for to-night, old man! What does it matter? To-morrow you'll be miles away."

This struck a reminiscence in Ford, who forthwith tried to sing:

I'm off by the morning train, Across the raging main——

"That's easily said!" Schilsky threw a dark look round the table. "By those who haven't been through it. I have. And I'd rather have lost a hand."

Krafft laughed—that is to say, a cackle of laughter issued from his mouth, while his glazed eyes stared idiotically. "He shall tell us about it. Waiter, a round of SCHNAPS!"

"Shut up, Krafft!" said Furst uneasily.

"Damn you, Heinz!" cried Schilsky, striking the table. He swallowed his brandy at a gulp, and held out the glass to be refilled. His anger fell still more; he began to commiserate himself. "By Hell, I wish a plague would sweep every woman off the earth!"

"The deuce, why don't you keep clear of them?"

Schilsky laughed, without raising his heavy eyes. "If they'd only give one the chance. Damn them all!—old and young——I say. If it weren't for them, a man could lead a quiet life."

"It'll all come out in the wash," consoled the American.

Maurice heard everything that passed, distinctly; but the words seemed to be bandied at an immeasurable distance from him. He remained quite undisturbed, and would have felt like a god looking on at the doings of an infinitesimal world, had it not been for a wheel which revolved in his head, and hindered him from thinking connectedly. So far, drinking had brought him no pleasure; and he had sense enough to find the proximity of Ford disagreeable; for the latter spilt half the liquor he tried to swallow over himself, and half over his neighbour.

A fresh imprecation of Schilsky's called forth more laughter. On its subsidence, Krafft awoke to his surroundings again. "What has the old woman given you?" he asked, with his strange precision of speech and his drunken eyes.

Schilsky struck the table with his fist. "Look at him!—shamming drunk, the bitch!" he cried.

"Never mind him; he don't count. How much did she give you?"

"Oh, gee, go on!"

But Schilsky, turned sullen again, refused to answer.

"Out with it then, Krafft!—you know, you scoundrel, you!"

Krafft put his hand to the side of his mouth. "She gave him three thousand marks."

On all sides the exclamations flew.

"Oh, gee-henna!"

"Golly for her!"

"DREI TAUSEND MARK!—ALLE EHRE!"

Again Krafft leaned forward with a maudlin laugh.

"JAWOHL—but on what condition?"

"Heinz, you ferret out things like a pig's snout," said Furst with an exaggerated, tipsy disgust.

"What, the old louse made conditions, did she?"

"Is she jealous?"

There was another roar at this. Schilsky looked as black as thunder.

Again Furst strove to intercede. "Jealous?—in seven devils' name, why jealous? The old scarecrow! She hasn't an ounce of flesh to her bones."

Schilsky laughed. "Much you know about it, you fool! Flesh or no flesh, she's as troublesome as the plumpest. I wouldn't go through the last month again for all you could offer me. Month?—no, nor the last six months either! It's been a hell of a life. Three of 'em, whole damned three, at my heels, and each ready to tear the others' eyes out."

"Three! Hullo!"

"Three? Bah!—what's three?" sneered the painted youth.

Schilsky turned on him. "What's three? Go and try it, if you want to know, you pap-sodden suckling! Three, I said, and they've ended by making the place too hot to hold me. But I'm done now. No more for me!—if my name's what it is."

Having once broken through his reserve, he talked on, with heated fluency; and the longer he spoke, the more he was carried away by his grievances. For, all he had asked for, he assured his hearers, had been peace and quiet—the peace necessary to important work. "Jesus and Mary! Are a fellow's chief obligations not his obligations to himself?" At the same time, it was not his intention to put any of the blame on Lulu's shoulders: she couldn't help herself. "Lulu is Lulu. I'm damned fond of Lulu, boys, and I've always done my best by her—is there anyone here who wants to say I haven't?"

There was none; a chorus of sympathetic ayes went up from the party that was drinking at his expense.

Mollified, he proceeded, asserting vehemently that he would have gone miles out of his way to avoid causing Lulu pain. "I'm a soft-hearted fool—I admit it!—where a woman is concerned." But he had yielded to her often enough—too often—as it was; the time had come for him to make a stand. Let those present remember what he had sacrificed only that summer for Lulu's sake. Would anyone else have done as much for his girl? He made bold to doubt it. For a man like Zeppelin to come to him, and to declare, with tears in his eyes, that he could teach him no more—could he afford to treat a matter like that with indifference? Had he really been free to make a choice?

Again he looked round the table with emphasis, and those who had their muscles sufficiently under control, hastened to lay their faces in seemly folds.

Then, however, Schilsky's mood changed; he struck the table so that the glasses danced. "And shall I tell you what my reward has been for not going? Do you want to know how Lulu has treated me for staying on here? 'You are a quarter of an hour late: where have you been? You've only written two bars since I saw you this morning: what have you been doing? A letter has come in a strange writing: who is it from? You've put on another tie: who have you been to see?' HIMMELSAKRAMENT!" He drained his glass. "I've had the life of a dog, I tell you—of a dog! There's not been a moment in the day when she hasn't spied on me, and followed me, and made me ridiculous. Over every trifle she has got up a fresh scene. She's even gone so far as to come to my room and search my pockets, when she knew I wasn't at home."

"Yes, yes," sneered Krafft. "Exactly! And so, gentlemen he was now for slinking off without a word to her."

"Oh, PFUI!" spat the American.

"Call him a liar!" said a voice.

"Liar?" repeated Schilsky dramatically. "Why liar? I don't deny it. I would have done it gladly if I could—isn't that just what I've been saying? Lulu would have got over it all the quicker alone. And then, why shouldn't I confess it? You're all my friends here." He dropped his voice. "I'm afraid of Lulu, boys. I was afraid she'd get round me, and then my chance was gone. She might have shot me, but she wouldn't have let me go. You never know how a woman of that type'll break out—never!"

"But she didn't!" said Krafft. "You live."

Schilsky understood him.

"Some brute," he cried savagely, "some dirty brute had nothing better to do than to tell her."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the painted boy.

Furst blew his nose. "It wasn't me. I was mum. 'Pon my honour, I was."

"My God!" said Schilsky, and fell to remembering it. "What a time I've been through with her this afternoon!" He threatened to be overcome by the recollection, and supported his head on his hands. "A woman has no gratitude," he murmured, and drew his handkerchief from his pocket. "It is a weak, childish sex—with no inkling of higher things." Here, however, he suddenly drew himself up. "Life is very hard!" he cried, in a loud voice. "The perpetual struggle between duty and inclination for a man of genius ...!"

He grew franker, and gave gratuitous details of the scene that had taken place in his room that afternoon. Most of those present were in ecstasies at this divulging of his private life, which went forward to the accompaniment of snores from Ford, and the voice of Dove, who, with portentous gravity, sang over and over again, the first strophe of THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.

"A fury!" said Schilsky. "A ... a what do you call it?—a ... Meg ... a Meg—" He gave it up and went on: "By God, but Lulu knows how! Keep clear of her nails, boys—I'd advise you!" At this point, he pulled back his collar, and exhibited a long, dark scratch on the side of his neck. "A little remembrance she gave me to take away with me!" While he displayed it, he seemed to be rather proud of it; but immediately afterwards, his mood veered round again to one of bitter resentment. To illustrate the injustice she had been guilty of, and his own long-suffering, he related, at length, the story of his flirtation with Ephie, and the infinite pains he had been at to keep Louise in ignorance of what was happening. He grew very tender with himself as he told it. For, according to him, the whole affair had come about without any assistance of his. "What the deuce was I to do? Chucked herself full at my head, did the little one. No invitation necessary—a ripe plum, boys! Touch the plum—and off it tumbles! As pretty a little thing, too, as ever was made! Had everything arranged by the second meeting. Papa to set us up; house in New York; money IN HULLE UND FULLE!"

At the mention of New York, the lean American looked grave. "Look here, you, don't think you're the whole shoot because you've got a wave in your hair!" he murmured in English.

But Schilsky did not hear him; his voice droned on, giving the full particulars of this particular case. He grew momentarily opener.

"One no sooner out of the door than the other was in," he asserted, and laughed long to himself.

For some time past, Maurice had been possessed by the idea that what was happening concerned him very nearly, and that he ought to interfere and put his foot down. His hands had grown cold, and he sat vainly trying to speak: nothing, however, came, but little drunken gulps and hiccups. But the first mention of Ephie's name seemed to put new strength into him; he made a violent effort, and rose to his feet, holding on to the table with both hands. He could not, however, manage to attract attention; no one took any notice of him; and besides this, he had himself no notion what it was that he really wanted to say.

"And drowns his sorrows in the convivial glass!" he suddenly shouted in English, at the top of his voice, which he had found. He had a vague belief that he was quoting a well-known line of poetry, and, though he did not in the least understand how it applied to the situation, he continued to repeat it, with varying shades of fervour, till some one called out: "Oh, stop your blasted rot!"

He laughed hoarsely at this, could not check himself, and was so exhausted when he had finished that it took him some time to remember why he was on his feet. Schilsky was still relating: his face was darkly red, his voice husky, and he flapped his arms with meaningless gestures. A passionate rebellion, a kind of primitive hatred, gripped Maurice, and when Schilsky paused for breath, he could contain himself no longer. He felt the burning need of contradicting the speaker, even though he could not catch the drift of what was said.

"It's a lie!" he cried fiercely, with such emphasis that every face was turned to him. "A damned lie!"

"A lie? What the devil do you mean?" responded not one but many voices—the whole table seemed to be asking him, with the exception of Dove, who sang on in an ever decreasing tempo.

"Get out!—Let him alone; he's drunk. He doesn't know what he's saying—He's got rats in his head!" he heard voices asserting. Forthwith he began a lengthy defence of himself, broken only by gaps in which his brain refused to work. Conscious that no one was listening to him, he bawled more and more loudly.

"Oh, quit it, you double-barrelled ass!" said the American.

Schilsky, persuaded by those next him to let the incident pass unnoticed, contented himself with a: "VERFLUCHTE SCHWEINEREI!" spat, after Furst's gurgled account of Maurice's previous insobriety, across the floor behind him, to express his contempt, and proceeded as dominatingly as before with the narration of his love-affairs.

The blood rushed to Maurice's head at the sound of this voice which he could neither curb nor understand. Rage mastered him—a vehement desire to be quits. He kicked back his chair, and rocked to and fro.

"It's a lie—a dirty lie!" he cried. "You make her unhappy—God, how unhappy you make her! You illtreat her. You've never given her a day's happiness. S ... said so ... herself. I heard her ... I swear ... I——"

His voice turned to a whine; his words came thick and incoherent.

Schilsky sprang to his feet and aimed the contents of a half-emptied glass at Maurice's face. "Take that, you blasted spy!—you Englishman!" he spluttered. "I'll teach you to mix your dirty self in my affairs!"

Every one jumped up; there was noise and confusion; simultaneously two waiters entered the room, as if they had not been unprepared for something of this kind. Furst and another man restrained Schilsky by the arms, reasoning with him with more force than coherence. Maurice, the beer dripping from chin, collar and shirt-front, struggled furiously with some one who held him back.

"Let me get at him—let me get at him!" he cried. "I'll teach him to treat a woman as he does. The sneak—the cur—the filthy cad! He's not fit to touch her hand—her beautiful hand—her beau ... ti ... ful——" Here, overpowered by his feelings, as much as by superior strength, he sank on a chair and wept.

"I'll break his bones!" raved Schilsky. "What the hell does he mean by it?—the INFAME SCHUFT, the AAS, the dirty ENGLANDER! Thinks he'll sneak after her himself, does he?—What in Jesus' name is it to him how I treat her? I'll take a stick to her if I like—it's none of his blasted business! Look here, do you see that?" He freed one hand, fumbled in his pocket, and, almost inarticulate with rage and liquor, brandished a key across the table. "Do you see that? That's a key, isn't it, you drunken hog? Well, with that key, I can let myself into Lulu's room at any hour I want to; I can go there now, this very minute, if I like—do you think she'll turn me out, you infernal spy? Turn me out?—she'd go down on her knees here before you all to get me back to her!"

Unwilling to be involved in the brawl, the more sober of the party had begun to seek out their hats and to slink away. A little group round Schilsky blarneyed and expostulated. Why should the whole sport of the evening be spoilt in this fashion? What did it matter what the damned cranky Englishman said? Let him be left to his swilling. They would clear out, and wind up the night at the BAUER; and at four, when that shut, they would go on to the BAYRISCHE BAHNHOF, where they could not only get coffee, but could also see Schilsky off by a train soon after five. These persuasions prevailed, and, still swearing, and threatening, and promising, by all that was holy, to bring Lulu there, by the hair of her head if necessary, to show whether or no he had the power over her he boasted of, Schilsky finally allowed himself to be dragged off, and those who were left lurched out in his wake.

With their exit an abrupt silence fell, and Maurice sank into a heavy sleep, in which he saw flowery meadows and heard a gently trickling brook....

"Now then, up with you!—get along!" some one was shouting in his ear, and, bit by bit, a pasty-faced waiter entered his field of view. "It's past time, anyhow," and yawning loudly, the waiter turned out all the gas-jets but one. "Don't yer hear? Up with you! You'll have to look after the other—now, damn me, if there isn't another of you as well!" and, from under the table, he drew out a recumbent body.

Maurice then saw that he was still in the company of Dove, who sat staring into space—like a dead man. Krafft, propped on a chair, hung his head far back, and the collarless shirt exposed the whole of his white throat.

The waiter hustled them about. Maurice was comparatively steady on his legs; and it was found that Dove could walk. But over Krafft, the man scratched his head and called a comrade. At the mention of a droschke, however, Maurice all but wept anew with ire and emotion: this was his dearest friend, the friend of his bosom; he was ready at any time to stake his life for him, and now he was not to be allowed even to see him home.

A difficulty arose about Maurice's hat: he was convinced that the one the waiter jammed so rudely on his head did not belong to him; and it seemed as if nothing in the world had ever mattered so much to him as now getting back his own hat. But he had not sufficient fluency to explain all he meant; before he had finished, the man lost patience; and suddenly, without any transition, the three of them were in the street. The raw night air gave them a shock; they gasped and choked a little. Then the wall of a house rose appositely and met them. They leaned against it, and Maurice threw the hat from him and trampled on it, chuckling at the idea that he was revenging himself on the waiter.