tuff, but it is better to
wear a blouse with spots on it than not to wear a blouse at all, isn't
it. I had pinned some flowers on it too, to hide it, and so they did
at first, but they were fading and hanging down, and there was the
spot, and Helena found it. Well, Herr von Inster came in, and put us
all right. He looks like nothing but a smart young officer, very
beautiful and slim in his Garde-Uhlan uniform, but he is really a lot
of other things besides. He is the Koseritz's cousin, and Helena says
_Du_ to him. He was very polite, said the right things to everybody,
explained he had had his luncheon, but thought, as he was passing, he
would look in. He would not deny, be said, that he had heard I was
coming--he made me a little bow across the table and smiled--and that
he had hopes I might perhaps be persuaded to play.

Not having a fiddle I couldn't do that. I wish I could have, for I'm
instantly natural and happy when I get playing; but the Grafin said she
hoped I would play to some of her friends one evening as soon as she
could arrange it,--friends interested in youthful geniuses, as she put
it.

I said I would love to, and that it was so kind of her, but privately I
thought I would inquire of Kloster first; for if her friends are all as
deeply interested in music as the Graf and Helena, then I would be
doing better and more profitably by going to bed at ten o'clock as
usual, rather than emerge bedizened from my lair to go and flaunt in
these haunts of splendid virtue.

After Herr von Inster came I began faintly to enjoy myself, for he
talked all round, and greatly and obviously relieved his aunt by doing
so. Helena let go of my ear and looked at him. Once she very nearly
smiled. The other girl left off murmuring, and talked about things I
could talk about too, such as England and Germany--they're never tired
of that--and Strauss and Debussy. Only the Graf sat mute, his eyes
fixed on the tablecloth.

"My husband is dying to hear you play," said the Grafin, when he got up
presently to go back to his work. "Absolutely _dying_," she said,
recklessly padding out the leanness of his very bald good-bye to me.

He said nothing even to that. He just went. He didn't seem to be
dying.

Herr von luster walked back with me. He is very agreeable-looking,
with kind eyes that are both shrewd and sad. He talks English very
well, and so did everybody at the Koseritzes who talked at all. He is
pathetically