woman. "It need not," he said angrily,
"have taken one who was likely in any case to be selected for purposes
of love-making, and given her, besides the ordinary collection of
allurements provided by nature to attract the male, a _Beethovenkopf_.
Never should that wide sweep of brow and those deep set eyes, the whole
noble thoughtfulness of such a head,"--you mustn't think me vain,
little mother, he positively said all these things and was so
angry--"have been combined with the rubbish, in this case irrelevant
and actually harmful, that goes to make up the usual pretty young face.
Mees Chrees, I could have wished you some minor deformity, such as many
spots, for then you would not now be in this lamentable condition of
being loved and responding to it. And if," he said as a parting shot,
"Providence was determined to commit this folly, it need not have
crowned it by choosing an Englishwoman."

"What?" I said, astonished, following him out on to the steps, for he
has always seemed to like and admire us.

"The English are not musical," he said, climbing into the car that was
to take him to the station, and in which Frau Kloster had been
patiently waiting. "They are not, they never were, and they never will
be. Purcell? A fig for your Purcell. You cannot make a great gallery
of art out of one miniature, however perfect. And as for your moderns,
your Parrys and Stanfords and Elgars and the rest, why, what stuff are
they? Very nice, very good, very conscientious: the translation into
musical notation of respectable English gentlemen in black coats and
silk hats. They are the British Stock Exchange got into music. No,
no," he said, tucking the dust-cover round himself and his wife, "the
English are not musicians. And you," he called back as the car was
moving, "You, Mees Chrees, are a freak,--nothing whatever but a freak
and an accident."

We turned away to go indoors. The Grafin said she considered he might
have wished her good-bye. "After all," she remarked, "I was his
hostess."

She looked thoughtfully at me and Bernd as we stood arm-in-arm aside at
the door to let her pass. "These geniuses," she said, laying her hand
a moment on Bernd's shoulder, "are interesting but difficult."

I think, little mother, she meant me, and was feeling a little sorry
for Bernd!

Isn't it queer how people don't understand. Anyhow, when she had gone
in we looked at each other and laughed, and Bernd took my hands and
kis