rs for
the last twenty-four hours; it had quite worn her out. What should she
say to him? that she disliked Frida? But what had the girl done that
she had taken a dislike to her? Nothing. She always curtseyed politely,
was always tidily dressed, had even plaited the blue ribbon into her
fair hair with a certain taste. The parents were also quite respectable
people, and still--these children always hung about the streets,
always, both summer and winter. You could pass their house whenever you
liked, those Laemkes were always outside their door. Was it the life of
the streets this snub-nosed girl, who was very developed for her age,
reminded her of? No, he must not go to those people's house, go down
into the atmosphere of the porter's room.

"I don't wish you to go there," she said. She had not the heart to
say: "I won't allow it," when he looked at her with those beseeching
eyes.

And the boy saw his advantage. He felt distinctly: she is struggling
with herself; and he followed it up with cruel pertinacity.

"Let me--oh, do let me. I shall be so sorry if I can't. Then I
shan't care to do anything. Why mayn't I? Mammy, I'll love you so, if
you'll only let me go. Do let me--will you? But I will."

She could not escape from him any more, he followed her wherever she
went, he took hold of her dress, and even if she forbade him to ask her
any more, she felt that he only thought of the one thing the whole
time. So he forced her in that way.

Paul Schlieben was not so averse to his accepting the invitation
from the Laemkes. "Why not? They're quite respectable people. It won't
harm the boy to cast a glance at those circles for once in a way. I
also went to our hall-porter's home as a boy. And why not?"

She wanted to say: "But that was something quite different, there
was no danger in your case"--but then she thought better of it and said
nothing. She did not want to bring him her fears, her doubts, her
secret gnawing dread so soon again, as there was no manifest reason for
them, and they could not be explained as every other feeling can be
after all. Something like a depressing mist always hung over her. But
why should she tell him so? She neither wanted to be scolded nor
laughed at for it; she would resent both. He was not the same man he
used to be. Oh--she felt it with a slight bitterness--how he used to
understand her. He had shared every emotion with her, every vibration
of her soul. But he had not the gift of unde