appealed to Fraulein
Cacilie's better nature: she was kind, sensible, tolerant; she treated her
no longer as a child, but as a grown woman. She said that it wouldn't be
so dreadful, but a Chinaman, with his yellow skin and flat nose, and his
little pig's eyes! That's what made it so horrible. It filled one with
disgust to think of it.

"Bitte, bitte," said Cacilie, with a rapid intake of the breath. "I won't
listen to anything against him."

"But it's not serious?" gasped Frau Erlin.

"I love him. I love him. I love him."

"Gott im Himmel!"

The Frau Professor stared at her with horrified surprise; she had thought
it was no more than naughtiness on the child's part, and innocent, folly.
but the passion in her voice revealed everything. Cacilie looked at her
for a moment with flaming eyes, and then with a shrug of her shoulders
went out of the room.

Frau Erlin kept the details of the interview to herself, and a day or two
later altered the arrangement of the table. She asked Herr Sung if he
would not come and sit at her end, and he with his unfailing politeness
accepted with alacrity. Cacilie took the change indifferently. But as if
the discovery that the relations between them were known to the whole
household made them more shameless, they made no secret now of their walks
together, and every afternoon quite openly set out to wander about the
hills. It was plain that they did not care what was said of them. At last
even the placidity of Professor Erlin was moved, and he insisted that his
wife should speak to the Chinaman. She took him aside in his turn and
expostulated; he was ruining the girl's reputation, he was doing harm to
the house, he must see how wrong and wicked his conduct was; but she was
met with smiling denials; Herr Sung did not know what she was talking
about, he was not paying any attention to Fraulein Cacilie, he never
walked with her; it was all untrue, every word of it.

"Ach, Herr Sung, how can you say such things? You've been seen again and
again."

"No, you're mistaken. It's untrue."

He looked at her with an unceasing smile, which showed his even, little
white teeth. He was quite calm. He denied everything. He denied with bland
effrontery. At last the Frau Professor lost her temper and said the girl
had confessed she loved him. He was not moved. He continued to smile.

"Nonsense! Nonsense! It's all untrue."

She could get nothing out of him. The weather grew very bad; there was
sno