gh the keyhole--with
your arm round her waist. And I know myself, scarcely a note was struck
in the hour. You have her here on any pretext; you keep her in the
class after all the others have gone. But this time I'm not going to
sit still till the scandal comes out, and she has to leave the place. A
man of your age!--the father of four children!--and this ugly little
hussy of seventeen! Was there ever such a miserable woman as I am! No,
she shall never enter this house again."

"And I say she shall!" came from Schwarz so fiercely that the listener
started. "Aren't you ashamed, woman, at your age, to set a servant
spying at keyholes?--or, what is more likely, spying yourself? Keep to
your kitchen and your pots, and don't dictate to me. I am the master of
the house."

"Not in a case like this. It concerns me. It concerns the children. I
say she shall never enter the door again."

"And I say she shall. Go out of the room!"

A chair grated roughly on a bare floor; a door banged with such
violence that every other door in the house vibrated.

In the silence that ensued, Maurice endeavoured to make his presence
known by walking about. But no one came. His eyes ranged round the
room. It was, with a few slight differences, the ordinary best room of
the ordinary German house. The windows were heavily curtained, and, in
front of them, to the further exclusion of light and air, stood
respectively a flower-table, laden with unlovely green plants, and a
room-aquarium. The plush furniture was stiffly grouped round an oblong
table and dotted with crochet-covers; under a glass shade was a massy
bunch of wax flowers; a vertikow, decorated with shells and grasses,
stood cornerwise beside the sofa; and, at the door, rose white and
gaunt a monumental Berlin stove. But, in addition to this, which was DE
RIGUEUR, there were personal touches: on the walls, besides the usual
group of family photographs, in oval frames, hung the copy of a Madonna
by Gabriel Max, two etchings after Defregger, several large
group-photographs of Schwarz's classes in different years, a framed
concert programme, yellow with age, and a silhouette of Schumann. Over
one of the doors hung a withered laurelwreath of imposing dimensions,
and with faded silken ends, on which the inscription was still legible:
DEM GROSSEN KUNSTLER, JOHANNES SCHWARZ!--Open on a chair, with an
embroidered book-marker between its pages, lay ATTA TROLL; and by the
stove, a battered wooden