for
human foibles; she came towards you with a perfectly natural openness,
and she came all the way--there was nothing left for you to explore.
And when not actually with her, it was easy to forget her; there was
never a look or a smile, never a barbed word, never a sudden
spontaneous gesture--the vivid translation of a thought--to stamp
itself on your memory.

But it was only at the outset that he thought things like these.
Madeleine Wade had been through experiences of the same kind before;
and hardly a fortnight later they were calling each other by their
Christian names.

When he came to her, towards evening, tired and inclined to be lonely,
she seated him in a corner of the sofa, and did not ask him to say much
until she made the tea. Then, when the cups were steaming in front of
them, she discussed sympathetically with him the progress of his work.
She questioned him, too, about his home and family, and he read her
parts of his mother's letters, which arrived without fail every Tuesday
morning. She also drew from him a more detailed account of his previous
life; and, in this connection, they had several animated discussions
about teaching, a calling to which Madeleine looked composedly forward
to returning, while Maurice, in strong superlative, declared he had
rather force a flock of sheep to walk in line. She told him, too, some
of the gossip the musical quarter of the town was rife with, about
those in high places; and, in particular, of the bitter rivalry that
had grown up with the years between Schwarz and Bendel, the chief
masters of the piano. If these two met in the street, they passed each
other with a stony stare; if, at an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, a pupil of one
was to play, the other rose ostentatiously and left the hall. She also
hinted that in order to obtain all you wanted at the Conservatorium, to
be favoured above your fellows, it was only necessary flagrantly to
bribe one of the clerks, Kleefeld by name, who was open to receive
anything, being wretchedly impecunious and the father of a large family.

Finding, too, that Maurice was bent on learning German, she, who spoke
the language fluently, proposed that they should read it together; and
soon it became their custom to work through a few pages of QUINTUS
FIXLEIN, a scene or two of Schiller, some lyrics of Heine. They also
began to play duets, symphonies old and new, and Madeleine took care
constantly to have something fresh and interesting at hand.