"My friend Dove tells me you are interested in German literature?" he said with a slight upward inflection in his voice.
Johanna did not reply, but she shot a quick glance at him, and colouring perceptibly, began to fidget with the tea-things.
"I've done a little in that line myself," continued Maurice, as she made no move to answer him. "In a modest way, of course. Just lately I finished reading the JUNGFRAU VON ORLEANS."
"Is that so?" said Johanna with an emphasis which made him colour also.
"It is very fine, is it not?" he asked less surely, and as she again acted as though he had not spoken, he lost his presence of mind. "I suppose you know it? You're sure to."
This time Johanna turned scarlet, as if he had touched her on a sore spot, and answered at once, sharply and rudely. "And I suppose," she said, and her hands shook a little as they fussed about the tray, "that you have also read MARIA STUART, and TELL, and a page or two of Jean Paul. You have perhaps heard of Lessing and Goethe, and you consider Heine the one and only German poet."
Maurice did not understand what she meant, but she had spoken so loudly and forbiddingly that several eyes were turned on them, making it incumbent on him not to take offence. He emptied his cup, and put it down, and tried to give the matter an airy turn.
"And why not?" he asked pleasantly. "Is there anything wrong in thinking so? Schiller and Goethe WERE great poets, weren't they? And you will grant that Heine is the only German writer who has had anything approaching a style?"
Johanna's face grew stony. "I have no intention of granting anything," she said. "Like all English people—it flatters your national vanity, I presume—you think German literature began and ended with Heine.—A miserable Jew!"
"Yes, but I say, one can hardly make him responsible for being a Jew, can you? What has that got to do with it?" exclaimed Maurice, this being a point of view that had never presented itself to him. And as Johanna only murmured something that was inaudible, he added lamely: "Then you don't think much of Heine?"
But she declined to be drawn into a discussion, even into an expression of opinion, and the young man continued, with apology in his tone: "It may be bad taste on my part, of course. But one hears it said on every side. If you could tell me what I ought to read … or, perhaps, advise me a little?" he ended tentatively.
"I don't lend my books," said Johanna more rudely than she had yet spoken. And that was all Maurice could get from her. A minute or two later, she rose and went out of the room.
It became much less restrained as soon as the door had closed behind her. Ephie laughed more roguishly, and Mrs. Cayhill allowed herself to find what her little daughter said, droller than before. With an appearance of unconcern, Maurice strolled back to the group by the window. Dove was also talking of literature.
"That reminds me, how did you like the book I lent you on Wednesday, Mrs. Cayhill?" he asked, at the same instant springing forward to pick up Ephie's handkerchief, which had fallen to the ground.
"Oh, very much indeed, very interesting, very good of you," answered Mrs. Cayhill. "Ephie, darling, the sun is shining right on your face."
"What was it?" asked James, while Dove jumped up anew to lower the blind, and Ephie raised a bare, dimpled arm to shade her eyes.
Mrs. Cayhill could not recollect the title just at once she had a "wretched memory for names"—and went over what she had been reading.
"Let me see, it was … no, that was yesterday: SHADOWED BY THREE, a most delightful Book. On Friday, RICHARD ELSMERE, and—oh, yes, I know, it was about a farm, an Australian farm."
"THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM," put in Dove mildly, returning to his seat.
"Australian or African, it doesn't matter which," said Mrs. Cayhill. "Yes, a nice book, but a little coarse in parts, and very foolish at the end—the disguising, and the dying out of doors, and the looking-glass, and all that."
"I must say I think it a very powerful book," said Dove solemnly. "That part, you know, where the boy listens to the clock ticking in the night, and thinks to himself that with every tick, a soul goes home to God. A very striking idea!"
"Why, I think it must be a horrid book," cried Ephie. "All about dying. Fancy some one dying every minute. It couldn't possibly be true. For then the world would soon be empty."
"Always there are coming more into it," said Furst, in his blunt, broken English.
A pause ensued. Dove flicked dust off his trouser-leg; and the American men present were suddenly fascinated by the bottoms of their cups. Ephie was the first to regain her composure.
"Now let us talk of something pleasant, something quite different—from dying." She turned and, over her shoulder, laughed mischievously at Maurice, who was siting behind her. Then, leaning forward in her chair, with every eye upon her, she told how Maurice had saved her music from the wind, and, with an arch face, made him appear very ridiculous. By her prettily exaggerated description of a heated, perspiring young man, darting to and fro, and muttering to himself in German, her hearers, Maurice included, were highly diverted—and no one more than Mrs. Cayhill.
"You puss, you puss!" she cried, wiping her eyes and shaking a finger at the naughty girl.
The general amusement had hardly subsided when Furst rose to his feet, and, drawing his heels together, made a flowery little speech, the gist of which was, that he would have esteemed himself a most fortunate man, had he been in Maurice's place. Ephie and her mother exchanged looks, and shook with ill-concealed mirth, so that Furst, who had spoken seriously and in good faith, sat down red and uncomfortable; and Boehmer, who was dressed in what he believed to be American fashion, smiled in a superior manner, to show he was aware that Furst was making himself ridiculous.
"Look here, Miss Ephie," said James; "the next time you have to go out alone, just send for me, and I'll take care of you."
"Or me" said Dove. "You have only to let me know."
"No, no, Mr. Dove!" cried Mrs. Cayhill. "You do far too much for her as it is. You'll spoil her altogether."
But at this, several of the young men exclaimed loudly: that would be impossible. And Ephie coloured becomingly, raised her lashes, and distributed winning smiles. Then quiet had been restored, she assured them that they all very kind, but she would never let anyone go with her but Joan—dear old Joan. They could not imagine how fond she was of Joan.
"She is worth more than all of you put together." And at the cries of: "Oh, oh!" she was thrown into a new fit of merriment, and went still further. "I would not give Joan's little finger for anyone in the world."
And meanwhile, as all her hearers—all, that is to say, except Dove, who sat moody, fingering his slight moustache, and gazing at Ephie with fondly reproachful eyes—as all of them, with Mrs. Cayhill at their head, made vehement protest against this sweeping assertion, Johanna sat alone in her bedroom, at the back of the house. It was a dull room, looking on a courtyard, but she was always glad to escape to it from the flippant chatter in the sitting-room. Drawing a little table to the window, she sat down and began to read. But, on this day, her thoughts wandered; and, ultimately, propping her chin on her hand, she fell into reverie, which began with something like "the fool and his Schiller!" and ended with her rising, and going to the well-stocked book-shelves that stood at the
