Shall I help you to bed?"

"You go downstairs, leave me alone. Tell Anna not to let Hans grub the
sugar--give him one on the ear."

"Ugly--ugly--ugly," muttered Sabina, returning to the cafe where the
Young Man stood coat-buttoned, ready for departure.

"I'll come again to-morrow," said he. "Don't twist your hair back so
tightly; it will lose all its curl."

"Well, you are a funny one," she said. "Good night."

By the time Sabina was ready for bed Anna was snoring. She brushed out
her long hair and gathered it in her hands... Perhaps it would be a pity
if it lost all its curl. Then she looked down at her straight chemise,
and drawing it off, sat down on the side of the bed.

"I wish," she whispered, smiling sleepily, "there was a great big
looking-glass in this room."

Lying down in the darkness, she hugged her little body.

"I wouldn't be the Frau for one hundred marks--not for a thousand marks.
To look like that."

And half-dreaming, she imagined herself heaving up in her chair with the
port wine bottle in her hand as the Young Man entered the cafe.

Cold and dark the next morning. Sabina woke, tired, feeling as though
something heavy had been pressing under her heart all night. There was
a sound of footsteps shuffling along the passage. Herr Lehmann! She must
have overslept herself. Yes, he was rattling the door-handle.

"One moment, one moment," she called, dragging on her stockings.

"Bina, tell Anna to go to the Frau--but quickly. I must ride for the
nurse."

"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Has it come?"

But he had gone, and she ran over to Anna and shook her by the shoulder.

"The Frau--the baby--Herr Lehmann for the nurse," she stuttered.

"Name of God!" said Anna, flinging herself out of bed.

No complaints to-day. Importance--enthusiasm in Anna's whole bearing.

"You run downstairs and light the oven. Put on a pan of water"--speaking
to an imaginary sufferer as she fastened her blouse--"Yes, yes, I
know--we must be worse before we are better--I'm coming--patience."

It was dark all that day. Lights were turned on immediately the cafe
opened, and business was very brisk. Anna, turned out of the Frau's
room by the nurse, refused to work, and sat in a corner nursing herself,
listening to sounds overhead. Hans was more sympathetic than Sabina. He
also forsook work, and stood by the window, picking his nose.

"But why must I do everything?" said Sabina, washing glasses. "I can't
help the Frau; she o