f the building were alive with young people of
both sexes. Young men sauntered to and from the cafe at the corner, or
stood gesticulating in animated groups. All alike were conspicuous for
a rather wilful slovenliness, for smooth faces and bushy hair, while
the numerous girls, with whom they paused to laugh and trifle, were,
for the most part, showy in dress and loudly vivacious in manner. On
the kerbstone, a knot of the latter, tittering among themselves, shot
furtive glances at Dove and Maurice as they passed. Here, a pretty,
laughing face was the centre of a little circle; there, a bevy of girls
clustered about a young man, who, his hands in his pockets, leaned
carelessly against the door-arch; and again, another, plump and much
befeathered, with a string of large pearlbeads round her fat, white
neck, had isolated herself from the rest, to take up, on the steps, a
more favourable stand. A master who went by, a small, jovial man in a
big hat, had a word for all the girls, even a chuck of the chin for one
unusually saucy face. Inside, classes were filing out of the various
rooms, other classes were going in; there was a noisy flocking up and
down the broad, central staircase, a crowding about the notice-board, a
going and coming in the long, stone corridors. The concert-hall was
being lighted.

Maurice slowly made his way through the midst of all these people,
while Dove loitered, or stepped out of hearing, with one friend after
another. In a side corridor, off which, cell like, opened a line of
rooms, they pushed a pair of doubledoors, and went in to take their
lesson.

The room they entered was light and high, and contained, besides a
couple of grand pianos, a small table and a row of wooden chairs.
Schwarz stood with his back to the window, biting his nails. He was a
short, thickset man, with keen eyes, and a hard, prominent mouth, which
was rather emphasised than concealed, by the fair, scanty tuft of hair
that hung from his chin. Upon the two new-comers, he bent a cold,
deliberate gaze, which, for some instants, he allowed to rest
chillingly on them, then as deliberately withdrew, having--so at least
it seemed to those who were its object--having, without the tremor of
an eyelid, scanned them like an open page: it was the look,
impenetrable, all-seeing, of the physician for his patient. At the
piano, a young man was playing the Waldstein Sonata. So intent was he
on what he was doing, that his head all but touche