o
your head that I want to work?"

She laughed, with ready bitterness. "I should think I could. That's
nothing new. You are always busy when I ask you to do anything. You
have time for everything and every one but me. If this were something
you yourself wanted to do to-night, neither your work nor anything else
would stand in the way of it; but my wishes can always be ignored. Have
you forgotten already that I only came home the day before yesterday?"

He looked sullen. "Now don't make a scene, Lulu. It doesn't do a whit
of good."

"A scene!" she cried, seizing on his words. "Whenever I open my lips
now, you call it a scene. Tell me what I have done, Eugen! Why do you
treat me like this? Are you beginning to care less for me? The first
evening, the very first, I get home, you won't stay with me--you
haven't even kept that evening free for me--and when I ask you about
it, and try to get at the truth--oh, do you remember all the cruel
things you said to me yesterday? I shall never forget them as long as I
live. And now, when I ask you to come out with me--it is such a little
thing-oh, I can't sit at home this evening, Eugen, I can't do it! If
you really loved me, you would understand."

She flung herself across the bed and sobbed despairingly. Schilsky, who
had again made believe during this outburst to be absorbed in his work,
cast a look of mingled anger and discomfort at the prostrate figure,
and for some few moments, succeeded in continuing his occupation with a
show of indifference; but as, in place of abating, her sobs grew more
heart-rending, his own face began to twitch, and finally he dropped
pencil and cigarette, and with a loud expression of annoyance went over
to the bed.

"Lulu," he said persuasively. "Come, Lulu," and bending over her, he
laid his hands on her shoulders and tried to force her to rise. She
resisted him with all her might, but he was the stronger, and presently
he had her on her feet, where, with her head on his shoulder, she wept
out the rest of her tears. He held her to him, and although his face
above her was still dark, did what he could to soothe her. He could
never bear, to see or to hear a woman cry, and this loud passionate
weeping, so careless of anything but itself, racked his nerves, and
filled him with an uneasy wrath against invisible powers.

"Don't cry, darling, don't cry!" he said again and again. Gradually she
grew calmer, and he, too, was still; but when her sobs were