his
any longer?"

His voice begged her for once to look at the matter as he did. But she
heard only the imperative.

"Must?" she repeated. "I don't see--not at all."

"Yes.--For your sake, I must go."

"Ah!--that makes it clearer. People have been talking, have they? Well,
let them talk."

"I can't hear you spoken of in that way."

"Oh, you're very good. But if we, ourselves, know that what's being
said is not true, what can it matter?"

"I refuse to be the cause of it."

"Do you, indeed?" She laughed. "You refuse? After doing all you can to
make yourself indispensable, you now say: get on as best you can alone;
I've had enough; I must go.--Don't say it's on my account--that the
thought of yourself is not at the bottom of it--for I wouldn't believe
you though you did."

"I give you my word, I have only thought of you. I meant it ... I mean
it, for the best."

She quickened her steps, and he saw that she was nervously worked up.

"No man can want to injure the woman he respects--as I respect you."

Her shoulders rose, in her own emotional way.

"But tell me one thing," he begged, as she walked inexorable before
him. "Say it will matter a little to you if I go--that you will miss
me--if ever so little ... Louise!"

"Miss you? What does it matter whether I miss you or not? It seems to
me that counts least of all. You, at any rate, will have acted
properly. You will have nothing to reproach yourself with.--Oh, I
wouldn't be a man for anything on earth! You are all--all alike. I hate
you and despise you--every one of you!"

They were within a few steps of the house. She pressed on, and, without
looking back at him, or wishing him good-night, disappeared in the
doorway.

XII.

It was a hot evening in June: the perfume of the lilac, now in fullest
bloom, lay over squares and gardens like a suspended wave. The sun had
gone down in a cloudless sky; an hour afterwards, the pavements were
still warm to the touch, and the walls of the buildings radiated the
heat they had absorbed. The high old houses in the inner town had all
windows set open, and the occupants leaned out on their
window-cushions, with continental nonchalance. The big garden-cafes
were filled to the last scat. In the woods, the midges buzzed round
people's heads in accompanying clouds; and streaks of treacherous white
mist trailed, like fixed smoke, over the low-lying meadow-land.

Maurice and Louise had rowed to Connewitz; but so l