in Fraeulein_. The matter is at an end."

"Herr Courvoisier, I--"

"At an end," he repeated, calmly, gently, looking at me as he had often
looked at me since the night of "Lohengrin," with a glance that baffled
and chilled me.

"I wish to apologize--"

"For what?" he inquired, with the faintest possible look of indifferent
surprise.

"For my rudeness--my surprise--I--"

"You refer to one evening at the opera. You exercised your privilege, as
a lady, of closing an acquaintance which you did not wish to renew. I
now exercise mine, as a gentleman, of saying that I choose to abide by
that decision, now and always."

I was surprised. Despite my own apologetic frame of mind, I was
surprised at his hardness; at the narrowness and ungenerosity which
could so determinedly shut the door in the face of an humble penitent
like me. He must see how I had repented the stupid slip I had made;
he must see how I desired to atone for it. It was not a slip of the
kind one would name irreparable, and yet he behaved to me as if I
had committed a crime; froze me with looks and words. Was he so
self-conscious and so vain that he could not get over that small slight
to his self-consequence, committed in haste and confusion by an ignorant
girl? Even then, even in that moment I asked myself these questions, my
astonishment being almost as great as my pain, for it was the very
reverse, the very opposite of what I had pictured to myself. Once let me
see him and speak to him, I had said to myself, and it would be all
right; every lineament of his face, every tone of his voice, bespoke a
frank, generous nature--one that could forgive. Alas! and alas! this was
the truth!

He had come to the door; he stood by it now, holding it open, looking at
me so courteously, so deferentially, with a manner of one who had been a
gentleman and lived with gentlemen all his life, but in a way which at
the same time ordered me out as plainly as possible.

I went to the door. I could no longer stand under that chilling glance,
nor endure the cool, polished contempt of the manner. I behaved by no
means heroically; neither flung my head back, nor muttered any defiance,
nor in any way proved myself a person of spirit. All I could do was to
look appealingly into his face; to search the bright, steady eyes,
without finding in them any hint of softening or relenting.

"Will you not take it, please?" I asked, in a quivering voice and with
trembling lips.

"Impos