"Good?" she asked, leaning her arms on the table and pillowing her breast

against them.
"But fine!"

He took a piece of the crumb, wiped it round his plate edge, and held it up
to her mouth. She shook her head.

"Not hungry," she said.
"But it is one of the best pieces, and full of the fat."

He cleared the plate; then pulled off his boots and flung them into a
corner.

"Not much of a wedding," he said, stretching out his feet and wriggling his
toes in the worsted socks.

"N--no," she replied, taking up the discarded boots and placing them on the
oven to dry.

Herr Brechenmacher yawned and stretched himself, and then looked up at her,
grinning.

"Remember the night that we came home? You were an innocent one, you
were."

"Get along! Such a time ago I forget." Well she remembered.
"Such a clout on the ear as you gave me...But I soon taught you."

"Oh, don't start talking. You've too much beer. Come to bed."
He tilted back in his chair, chuckling with laughter.

"That's not what you said to me that night. God, the trouble you gave me!"
But the little Frau seized the candle and went into the next room. The

children were all soundly sleeping. She stripped the mattress off the
baby's bed to see if he was still dry, then began unfastening her blouse

and skirt.
"Always the same," she said--"all over the world the same; but, God in

heaven--but STUPID.
Then even the memory of the wedding faded quite. She lay down on the bed

and put her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt as
Herr Brechenmacher lurched in.

6. THE MODERN SOUL.
"Good-evening," said the Herr Professor, squeezing my hand; "wonderful

weather! I have just returned from a party in the wood. I have been
making music for them on my trombone. You know, these pine-trees provide

most suitableaccompaniment for a trombone! They are sighing delicacy
against sustained strength, as I remarked once in a lecture on wind

instruments in Frankfort. May I be permitted to sit beside you on this
bench, gnadige Frau?"

He sat down, tugging at a white-paper package in the tail pocket of his
coat.

"Cherries," he said, nodding and smiling. "There is nothing like cherries
for producing free saliva after trombone playing, especially after Grieg's

'Ich Liebe Dich.' Those sustained blasts on 'liebe' make my throat as dry
as a railway tunnel. Have some?" He shook the bag at me.

"I prefer watching you eat them."
"Ah, ha!" He crossed his legs, sticking the cherry bag between his knees,

to leave both hands free. "Psychologically I understood your refusal. It
is your innate femininedelicacy in preferring etherealised sensations...Or

perhaps you do not care to eat the worms. All cherries contain worms.
Once I made a very interesting experiment with a colleague of mine at the

university. We bit into four pounds of the best cherries and did not find
one specimen without a worm. But what would you? As I remarked to him

afterwards--dear friend, it amounts to this: if one wishes to satisfy the
desires of nature one must be strong enough to ignore the facts of

nature...The conversation is not out of your depth? I have so seldom the
time or opportunity to open my heart to a woman that I am apt to forget."

I looked at him brightly.
"See what a fat one!" cried the Herr Professor. "That is almost a mouthful

in itself; it is beautiful enough to hang from a watch-chain." He chewed
it up and spat the stone an incredible distance--over the garden path into

the flower bed. He was proud of the feat. I saw it. "The quantity of
fruit I have eaten on this bench," he sighed; "apricots, peaches and

cherries. One day that garden bed will become an orchard grove, and I
shall allow you to pick as much as you please, without paying me anything."

I was grateful, without showing undue excitement.
"Which reminds me"--he hit the side of his nose with one finger--"the

manager of the pension handed me my weekly bill after dinner this evening.
It is almost impossible to credit. I do not expect you to believe me--he

has charged me extra for a miserable little glass of milk I drink in bed at
night to prevent insomnia. Naturally, I did not pay. But the tragedy of

the story is this: I cannot expect the milk to produce somnolence any
longer; my peaceful attitude of mind towards it is completely destroyed. I

know I shall throw myself into a fever in attempting to plumb this want of
generosity in so wealthy a man as the manager of a pension. Think of me

to-night."--he ground the empty bag under his heel--"think that the worst
is happening to me as your head drops asleep on your pillow."

Two ladies came on the front steps of the pension and stood, arm in arm,
looking over the garden. The one, old and scraggy, dressed almost entirely

in black bead trimming and a satin reticule; the other, young and thin, in
a white gown, her yellow hair tastefully garnished with mauve sweet peas.

The Professor drew in his feet and sat up sharply, pulling down his
waistcoat.

"The Godowskas," he murmured. "Do you know them? A mother and daughter
from Vienna. The mother has an internalcomplaint and the daughter is an

actress. Fraulein Sonia is a very modern soul. I think you would find her
most sympathetic. She is forced to be in attendance on her mother just

now. But what a temperament! I have once described her in her autograph
album as a tigress with a flower in the hair. Will you excuse me? Perhaps

I can persuade them to be introduced to you."
I said, "I am going up to my room." But the Professor rose and shook a

playful finger at me. "Na," he said, "we are friends, and, therefore, I
shall speak quite frankly to you. I think they would consider it a little

'marked' if you immediately retired to the house at their approach, after
sitting here alone with me in the twilight. You know this world. Yes, you

know it as I do."
I shrugged my shoulders, remarking with one eye that while the Professor

had been talking the Godowskas had trailed across the lawn towards us.
They confronted the Herr Professor as he stood up.

"Good-evening," quavered Frau Godowska. "Wonderful weather! It has given
me quite a touch of hay fever!" Fraulein Godowska said nothing. She

swooped over a rose growing in the embryoorchard then stretched out her
hand with a magnificentgesture to the Herr Professor. He presented me.

"This is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the
stranger in our midst. We have been eating cherries together."

"How delightful," sighed Frau Godowska. "My daughter and I have often
observed you through the bedroom window. Haven't we, Sonia?"

Sonia absorbed my outward and visible form with an inward and spiritual
glance, then repeated the magnificentgesture for my benefit. The four of

us sat on the bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers
established in a railway carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle.

Frau Godowska sneezed. "I wonder if it is hay fever," she remarked,
worrying the satin reticule for her handkerchief, "or would it be the dew.

Sonia, dear, is the dew falling?"
Fraulein Sonia raised her face to the sky, and half closed her eyes. "No,

mamma, my face is quite warm. Oh, look, Herr Professor, there are swallows
in flight; they are like a little flock of Japanese thoughts--nicht wahr?"

"Where?" cried the Herr Professor. "Oh yes, I see, by the kitchen chimney.
But why do you say 'Japanese'? Could you not compare them with equal

veracity to a little flock of German thoughts in flight?" He rounded on
me. "Have you swallows in England?"

"I believe there are some at certain seasons. But doubtless they have not
the same symbolical value for the English. In Germany--"

"I have never been to England," interrupted Fraulein Sonia, "but I have
many English acquaintances. They are so cold!" She shivered.

"Fish-blooded," snapped Frau Godowska. "Without soul, without heart,
without grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials. I spent a week