be with
the right sort of people and you'll learn a good, live, warm German,
that will be like yourself. You'll get a new speech full of shades and
color like your voice; alive, like your mind. It will be almost like
being born again, Thea."

She was not offended. Fred had said such things to her before, and she
wanted to learn. In the natural course of things she would never have
loved a man from whom she could not learn a great deal.

"Harsanyi said once," she remarked thoughtfully, "that if one became an
artist one had to be born again, and that one owed nothing to anybody."

"Exactly. And when I see you again I shall not see you, but your
daughter. May I?" He held up his cigarette case questioningly and then
began to smoke, taking up again the song which ran in his head:--

"DEUTLICH SCHIMMERT AUF JEDEM, PURPURBLATTCHEN, ADELAIDE!"

"I have half an hour with you yet, and then, exit Fred." He walked about
the room, smoking and singing the words under his breath. "You'll like
the voyage," he said abruptly. "That first approach to a foreign shore,
stealing up on it and finding it--there's nothing like it. It wakes up
everything that's asleep in you. You won't mind my writing to some
people in Berlin? They'll be nice to you."

"I wish you would." Thea gave a deep sigh. "I wish one could look ahead
and see what is coming to one."

"Oh, no!" Fred was smoking nervously; "that would never do. It's the
uncertainty that makes one try. You've never had any sort of chance, and
now I fancy you'll make it up to yourself. You'll find the way to let
yourself out in one long flight."

Thea put her hand on her heart. "And then drop like the rocks we used to
throw--anywhere." She left the chair and went over to the sofa, hunting
for something in the trunk trays. When she came back she found Fred
sitting in her place. "Here are some handkerchiefs of yours. I've kept
one or two. They're larger than mine and useful if one has a headache."

"Thank you. How nicely they smell of your things!" He looked at the
white squares for a moment and then put them in his pocket. He kept the
low chair, and as she stood beside him he took her hands and sat looking
intently at them, as if he were examining them for some special purpose,
tracing the long round fingers with the tips of his own. "Ordinarily,
you know, there are reefs that a man catches to and keeps his nose above
water. But this is a case by itself. There seems to be no limit a