to money,
reddened.

"But it won't make any difference to you," he said. "I'll pay for the
lessons just the same. If you wouldn't mind I'd like to give you the money
for next week in advance."

Monsieur Ducroz charged eighteen pence an hour. Philip took a ten-mark
piece out of his pocket and shyly put it on the table. He could not bring
himself to offer it as if the old man were a beggar.

"In that case I think I won't come again till I'm better." He took the
coin and, without anything more than the elaborate bow with which he
always took his leave, went out.

"Bonjour, monsieur."

Philip was vaguely disappointed. Thinking he had done a generous thing, he
had expected that Monsieur Ducroz would overwhelm him with expressions of
gratitude. He was taken aback to find that the old teacher accepted the
present as though it were his due. He was so young, he did not realise how
much less is the sense of obligation in those who receive favours than in
those who grant them. Monsieur Ducroz appeared again five or six days
later. He tottered a little more and was very weak, but seemed to have
overcome the severity of the attack. He was no more communicative than he
had been before. He remained mysterious, aloof, and dirty. He made no
reference to his illness till after the lesson: and then, just as he was
leaving, at the door, which he held open, he paused. He hesitated, as
though to speak were difficult.

"If it hadn't been for the money you gave me I should have starved. It was
all I had to live on."

He made his solemn, obsequious bow, and went out. Philip felt a little
lump in his throat. He seemed to realise in a fashion the hopeless
bitterness of the old man's struggle, and how hard life was for him when
to himself it was so pleasant.

XXVI

Philip had spent three months in Heidelberg when one morning the Frau
Professor told him that an Englishman named Hayward was coming to stay in
the house, and the same evening at supper he saw a new face. For some days
the family had lived in a state of excitement. First, as the result of
heaven knows what scheming, by dint of humble prayers and veiled threats,
the parents of the young Englishman to whom Fraulein Thekla was engaged
had invited her to visit them in England, and she had set off with an
album of water colours to show how accomplished she was and a bundle of
letters to prove how deeply the young man had compromised himself. A week
later Fraulein Hedwig wit