dvertising
yourself yet?"

He waved his hand before his face as if he were chasing away a fly.
"For God's sake, Madeleine! ... these alluring prospects!"

"Pray, what else do you expect to do?"

"Well, the truth is, I ... I'm not going back to England at all. I mean
to settle here."

Madeleine repressed the exclamation that rose to her lips, and stooped
to brush something off the skirt of her dress. Her face was red when
she raised it. She needed no further telling; she understood what his
words implied as clearly as though it were printed black on white
before her. But she spoke in a casual tone.

"However are you going to make that possible?"

He endeavoured to explain.

"I don't envy you," she said drily, when he had finished. "You hardly
realise what lies before you, I think. There are people here who are
glad to get fifty pfennigs an hour, for piano lessons. Think of
plodding up and down stairs, all day long, for fifty pfennigs an hour!"

He was silent.

"While in England, with a little tact and patience, you would soon have
more pupils than you could take at five shillings."

"Tact and patience mean push and a thick skin. But don't worry! I shall
get on all right. And if I don't--life's short, you know."

"But you are just at: the beginning of it--and ridiculously young at
that! Good Heavens, Maurice!" she burst out, unable to contain herself.
"Can't you see that after you've been at home again for a little while,
things that have seemed so important here will have shrunk into their
right places? You'll be glad to have done with them then, when you are
in orderly circumstances again."

"I'm afraid not," answered the young man. "I'm not a good forgetter."

"A good forgetter!" repeated Madeleine, and laughed sarcastically. She
was going on to say more, but, just at this moment, a clock outside
struck ten, and Maurice sprang to his feet.

"So late already? I'd no idea. I must be off."

She stood by, and watched him look for his hat.

"Here it is." She picked it up, and handed it to him, with an
emphasised want of haste.

"Good night, Madeleine. Thanks for the truth. I knew I could depend on
you."

"It was well meant. And the truth is always beneficial, you know. Good
night.--Come again, soon."

He heard her last words half-way down the stairs, which he took two at
a time.

The hour he had now to face was a painful ending to an unpleasant day.
It was not merely the fact that he had kept Loui