see
you don't understand in the least, and are laying up a big
disappointment for yourself. However, you shall have your way--if only
to show you that I am right."

"Thanks, Madeleine--thanks awfully."

They settled down to read Schiller. But Maurice made one slip after
another, and she let them pass uncorrected. She was annoyed with
herself afresh, for having made too much of the matter, for having
blown it up to a fictitious importance, when the wiser way would have
been to treat it as of no consequence at all.

The next afternoon he arrived, with expectation in his face; but not on
this day, nor the next, nor the next again, did she bring the subject
up between them. On the fourth, however, as he was leaving, she said
abruptly: "You must have patience for a little, Maurice. Louise has
gone to Dresden."

"That's why the blinds are down," he exclaimed without thinking, then
coloured furiously at his own words, and, to smooth them over, asked:
"Why has she gone? For how long?"

But Madeleine caught him up. "SIEH DA, some one has been playing
sentinel!" she said in raillery; and it seemed to him that every fold
in his brain was laid bare to her, before she answered: "She has gone
for a week or ten days--to visit some friends who are staying there."

He nodded, and was about to open the door, when she added: "But set
your mind at rest--HE is here."

Maurice looked sharply up; but a minute or two passed before the true
meaning of her words broke on him. He coloured again--a mortifying
habit he had not outgrown, and one which seemed to affect him more in
the presence of Madeleine than of anyone else.

"It's hardly a thing to joke about."

"Joke!--who is joking?" she asked, and raised her eyebrows so high that
her forehead was filled with wrinkles. "Nothing was further from my
thoughts."

Maurice hesitated, and stood undecided, holding the doorhandle. Then,
following an impulse, he turned and sat down again. "Madeleine, tell
me--I wouldn't ask anyone but you--what sort of a fellow IS this
Schilsky?"

"What sort of a fellow?" She laughed sarcastically. "To be quite
truthful, Maurice, the best fiddler the Con. has turned out for years."

"Now you're joking again. As if I didn't know that. Everyone says the
same."

"You want his moral character? Well, I'll be equally candid. Or, at
least, I'll give you my opinion of him. It's another superlative. Just
as I consider him the best violinist, I also hold him to be