anna was silent. But after this, she did not venture to mention
Maurice's name; and she had turned to leave the room when she
remembered her meeting with Mrs. Tully.

"I would rather you did not go to tea, Ephie," she ended, and then
regretted having said it.

"That's another of your silly prejudices, Joan. I want to know why you
feel so about Mrs. Tully. I think she's lovely. Not that I'd have gone
anyway. I promised Maurice to go for a walk with him at five. I know
what her 'few friends' means, too--just Boehmer, and she asks me along
so people will think he comes to see me, and not her. He sits there,
and twirls his moustache, and makes eyes at her, and she makes them
back. I'm only for show. No, I shouldn't have gone. I can't bear
Boehmer. He's such a goat."

"You didn't think that as long as he came to see us," expostulated
Johanna.

"No, of course not. But so he only comes to see her, I do.--And
sometimes, Joan, why it's just embarrassing. The last afternoon, why,
he had a headache or something, and she made him lie on the sofa, with
a rug over him, so she could bathe his head with eau-de-cologne. I
guess she's going to marry him. And I'm not the only one. The other day
I heard Frau Walter and Frau von Baerle talking in the dining-room
after dinner, and they said the little English widow was very
HEIRATSLUSTIG."

"Ephie, I don't like to hear you repeat such foolish gossip," said
Johanna in real distress. "And if you can understand and remember a
word like that, you might really take more pains with your German. It
is not impossible for you to learn, you see."

"Joan the preacher, and Joan the teacher, and Joan the wise old bird,"
sang Ephie, and laughed. "I think Mrs. Tully is real kind. She's going
to show me a new way to do my hair. This style is quite out in London,
she says."

"Don't let her touch your hair. It couldn't be better than it is," said
Johanna quickly. But Ephie turned her head this way and that, and
considered herself in the looking-glass.

Now that she knew Maurice was expected that afternoon, Johanna awaited
his arrival with impatience. Meanwhile, she believed she was not wrong
in thinking Ephie unusually excited. At dinner, where, as always, the
elderly boarders made a great fuss over her, her laughter was so loud
as to grate on Johanna's ear; but afterwards, in their own
sitting-room, a trifle sufficed to put her out of temper. A new hat had
been sent home, a hat which Johanna had n