oke of that evening's
ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, at which Furst was to play. But by the time the
clock struck four, Maurice had relapsed, in spite of himself, into
silence. Madeleine rallied him.

"You must make shift with my company, Maurice. Not but what I am sure
Louise will come. But you see from this what she is--the most
unreliable creature in the world."

To pass the time, she suggested that he should help her to make tea,
and they were both busy, when the electric bell in the passage whizzed
harshly, and the next moment there came a knock at the door. But it was
not Louise. Instead, two persons entered, one of whom was Heinrich
Krafft, the other a short, thickset girl, in a man's felt hat and a
closely buttoned ulster.

On recognising her visitors, Madeleine made a movement of annoyance,
and drew her brows together. "You, Heinz!" she said.

Undaunted by this greeting, Krafft advanced to her and, taking her
hands, kissed them, one after the other. He was also about to kiss her
on the lips, but she defended herself. "Stop! We are not alone."

"Just for that reason," said the girl in the ulster drily.

"What ill wind blows you here to-day?" Madeleine asked him.

As he was still wearing his hat, she took it off, and dropped it on the
floor beside him; then she recollected Maurice, and made him known to
the other two. Coming forward, Maurice recalled to Krafft's memory
where they had already met, and what had passed between them. Before he
had finished speaking, Krafft burst into an unmannerly peal of
laughter. Madeleine laughed, too, and shook her finger at him. "You
have been up to your tricks again!" Avery Hill, the girl in the ulster,
did not laugh aloud, but a smile played round her mouth, which Maurice
found even more disagreeable than the mirth of which he had been the
innocent cause. He coloured, and withdrew to the window.

Krafft was so convulsed that he was obliged to sit down on the sofa,
where Madeleine fanned him with a sheet of music. He had been seized by
a kind of paroxysm, and laughed on and on, in a mirthless way, till
Avery Hill said suddenly and angrily: "Stop laughing at once, Heinz!
You will have hysterics."

In an instant he was sobered, and now he seemed to fall, without
transition, into a mood of dejection. Taking out his penknife, he set
to paring his nails, in a precise and preoccupied manner. Madeleine
turned to Maurice.

"You'll wonder what all this is about," she said apologetically