borrowed from Fraeulein an old copy of the "Buch der Lieder." Very
obliging at times like the rest of the family in the business of
improving his accent, she urged that if he would commit some of
those little prized poems to heart, she would supervise his
intonations. He eagerly betook himself to this charming exercise,
and it was not long before he was inviting her to walk along that
alluring path through the meadow by the persuasive water. Here he
repeated over and over to her the very pertinent lines,

Thou'rt like unto a flower,

and

Thou lov'st me not, thou lov'st me not,

under the conscientious reproofs of her engaging diction.

But never more than for half an hour at a time. This was all she
could spare him. Her days were very strictly divided by her pressing
concerns. A sightly young woman so tremendously busy--it was almost
exasperating.

And he could not establish any tender quality of relationship that
would warm a delectable exchange of rosy intimations or tentative
expressions of budding feelings of delight. It was teacher and
pupil. She unsuspectingly insisted on following her role of
preceptress and very earnest was she about it, too.

She saw nothing comical in his frequent linguistic stumblings that
would naturally lead to melting moods. As the Germans have, of
course, little humor, she found in these faulty exhibitions only
causes for disappointed glances and reprimands approaching severity.
Often you would have thought he was a boy of ten reciting his lesson
at her knee.

"Now Thursday by half past ten, you must have that line right or I
will _scold_ you." And she would sometimes laugh a little in her
discouragement.

She looked upon it as a duty, a voluntary drudgery, but which, she
assured him, she was most pleased to do. For she loved Heine--raved
about him, like sentimental German maids. She could never go over
his verse often enough. And so she encouraged Gard to keep on. It
was a reflected part of her normal disciplined life of acquisition.

After a month of these tactics he realized he was making no headway
toward--he did not acknowledge what. Young men as a type did not
seem to Elsa of special interest any more than a hundred other
objects on earth. And then the cold weather before long put an end
to the little promenades of rime by the shore, and Gard had to try
other lines of attack on this radiant and beflowered German
fortress.

The park of fir trees lay quite be