you can get ready."

He looked at me, surprised, and little by little he blushed. "There is
something I have not told you," he said; "something that your saying that
Madame Blumenthal has no reputation to lose has made me half afraid to
tell you."

"I think I can guess it. Madame Blumenthal has asked you to come and
play her game for her again."

"Not at all!" cried Pickering, with a smile of triumph. "She says that
she means to play no more for the present. She has asked me to come and
take tea with her this evening."

"Ah, then," I said, very gravely, "of course you can't leave Homburg."

He answered nothing, but looked askance at me, as if he were expecting me
to laugh. "Urge it strongly," he said in a moment. "Say it's my
duty--that I _must_."

I didn't quite understand him, but, feathering the shaft with a harmless
expletive, I told him that unless he followed my advice I would never
speak to him again.

He got up, stood before me, and struck the ground with his stick. "Good!"
he cried; "I wanted an occasion to break a rule--to leap a barrier. Here
it is. I stay!"

I made him a mock bow for his energy. "That's very fine," I said; "but
now, to put you in a proper mood for Madame Blumenthal's tea, we will go
and listen to the band play Schubert under the lindens." And we walked
back through the woods.

I went to see Pickering the next day, at his inn, and on knocking, as
directed, at his door, was surprised to hear the sound of a loud voice
within. My knock remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced myself. I
found no company, but I discovered my friend walking up and down the room
and apparently declaiming to himself from a little volume bound in white
vellum. He greeted me heartily, threw his book on the table, and said
that he was taking a German lesson.

"And who is your teacher?" I asked, glancing at the book.

He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he answered, after an instant's
delay, "Madame Blumenthal."

"Indeed! Has she written a grammar?"

"It's not a grammar; it's a tragedy." And he handed me the book.

I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, with a very large margin, an
_Historisches Trauerspiel_ in five acts, entitled "Cleopatra." There
were a great many marginal corrections and annotations, apparently from
the author's hand; the speeches were very long, and there was an
inordinate number of soliloquies by the heroine. One of them, I
remember, towards the end of