he is
willing to give; and he gives with the air of a prince!"

"I cannot allow you to--to--" she began. "You are not rich, and yet
you wish to teach for nothing. Surely your time is--is valuable----"

"I have more than I need," he replied with quiet dignity.

The heiress to twenty-five millions felt the rebuff and she liked him
all the more for it, but she would not accept his offer without an
effort to prevent the sacrifice.

"Why should you sacrifice yourself?" she asked.

"It is no sacrifice to--ah--please, please! Put it down to the whim of
an old man--what you will; but don't deny me this pleasure! Don't,
please!"

His pleading look disarmed her and she gave up trying to dissuade him.

"Very well," she said. "It shall be as you wish."

She could not help liking him, she said to herself. His manner, at
first a little embarrassing, now interested her strangely. He reminded
her of a German nobleman she had met in Washington at the German
Embassy. His grace, his bearing, his whole demeanour was noble and
dignified in the extreme. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have
regarded his offer to teach her little charge for nothing as a gross
breach of politeness, but with him she did not feel angry in the least.

"It's curious," she said, "I came here with a good object in view; and
you calmly appropriate my good intentions and make them your own, and
what is still more strange I allow you to do so."

"Ah, don't say that!" still the tearful, pleading voice that moved her
so.

"Yes, I allow you to do so," she persisted, and then she added, "Do you
know, Herr Barwig, I like you, in spite of a strong temptation to be
very angry with you?"

She had now moved around to the piano.

"You know," she said enthusiastically, "I love music and musical
people. Some of the very greatest artists come to my father's
musicales."

"My father," the words made Von Barwig's heart sink. "My father!"

She sat down at the piano; he raised the lamp and looked into her eyes,
and as he stood there with the lamp uplifted she looked into his face.

"Of whom do you remind me?" she said quickly. "Don't move----"

There was a deep silence. The old man could hear his heart beat.

"Of whom, of whom?" he gasped. "Go on; tell me! Try to remember! For
God's sake try to remember!"

"There, now, it's gone!" she said. "I can't think," she added after a
pause, greatly surprised at his look. "You know somehow or other