Maurice Guest | Page 7

dialect is barbarous, isn't it?" she added kindly. "But
perhaps you have not had much experience of it yet."
"No. I only arrived this morning."
At this, she opened her eyes wide. "Why, you are a courageous
person!" she said and laughed, but did not explain what she meant, and
he did not like to ask her.
A cup of coffee was set on the table before her; she held a lump of
sugar in her spoon, and watched it grow brown and dissolve. "Are you
going to make a long stay?" she asked, to help him over his
embarrassment.
"Two years, I hope," said the young man.
"Music?" she queried further, and, as he replied affirmatively: "Then
the Con. of course?"--an enigmatic question that needed to be
explained. "You're piano, are you not?" she went on. "I thought so. It is
hardly possible to mistake the hands"--here she just glanced at her own,
which, large, white, and well formed, were lying on the table. "With
strings, you know, the right hand is as a rule shockingly defective."
He found the high clearness of her voice very agreeable after the deep
roundnesses of German, and could have gone on listening to it. But she
was brushing the crumbs from her skirt, preparatory to rising.
"Are you an old resident here?" he queried in the hope of detaining her.
"Yes, quite. I'm at the end of my second year; and don't know whether
to be glad or sorry," she answered. "Time goes like a flash.--Now, look
here, as one who knows the ways of the place, would you let me give
you a piece of advice? Yes?--It's this. You intend to enter the
Conservatorium, you say. Well, be sure you get under a good
man--that's half the battle. Try and play privately to either Schwarz or
Bendel. If you go in for the public examination with all the rest, the
people in the BUREAU will put you to anyone they like, and that is
disastrous. Choose your own master, and beard him in his den
beforehand."
"Yes . . . and you recommend? May I ask whom you are with?" he said
eagerly.
"Schwarz is my master; and I couldn't wish for a better. But Bendel is
good, too, in his way, and is much sought after by the

Americans--you're not American, are you? No.--Well, the English
colony runs the American close nowadays. We're a regular army. If you
don't want to, you need hardly mix with foreigners as long as you're
here. We have our clubs and balls and other social functions--and our
geniuses--and our masters who speak English like natives . . . But
there!--you'll soon know all about it yourself."
She nodded pleasantly and rose.
"I must be off," she said. "To-day every minute is precious. That
wretched PROBE spoils the morning, and directly it is over, I have to
rush to an organ-lesson--that's why I'm here. For I can't expect a
PENSION to keep dinner hot for me till nearly three o'clock--can I?
Morning rehearsals are a mistake. What?--you were there, too?
Really?--after a night in the train? Well, you didn't get much, did you,
for your energy? A dull aria, an overture that 'belongs in the theatre,' as
they say here, an indifferently played symphony that one has heard at
least a dozen times. And for us poor pianists, not a fresh dish this
season. Nothing but yesterday's remains heated up again."
She laughed as she spoke, and Maurice Guest laughed, too, not being
able at the moment to think of anything to say.
Getting the better of the waiter, who stood by, napkin on arm, smiling
and officious, he helped her into the unbecoming cloak; then took up
the parcel of music and opened the door. In his manner of doing this,
there may have been a touch of over-readiness, for no sooner was she
outside, than she quietly took the music from him, and, without even
offering him her hand, said a friendly but curt good-bye: almost before
he had time to return it, he saw her hurrying up the street, as though she
had never vouchsafed him word or thought. The abruptness of the
dismissal left him breathless; in his imagination, they had walked at
least a strip of the street together. He stepped off the pavement into the
road, that he might keep her longer in sight, and for some time he saw
her head, in the close-fitting hat, bobbing along above the heads of
other people.
On turning again, he found that the waiter was watching him from the
window of the restaurant, and it seemed to the young man that the pale,
servile face wore a malicious smile. With the feeling of disconcertion
that springs from being caught in an impulsive