Villa Rubein and Other Stories | Page 7

sniffed at Harz, showed the whites round his eyes, and uttered a sharp
bark. A young voice called:
"Scruff! Thou naughty dog!" Light footsteps were heard on the stairs;
from the distance a thin, high voice called:

"Greta! You mustn't go up there!"
A little girl of twelve, with long fair hair under a wide-brimmed hat,
slipped in.
Her blue eyes opened wide, her face flushed up. That face was not
regular; its cheek-bones were rather prominent, the nose was flattish;
there was about it an air, innocent, reflecting, quizzical, shy.
"Oh!" she said.
Harz smiled: "Good-morning! This your dog?"
She did not answer, but looked at him with soft bewilderment; then
running to the dog seized him by the collar.
"Scr-ruff! Thou naughty dog-the baddest dog!" The ends of her hair fell
about him; she looked up at Harz, who said:
"Not at all! Let me give him some bread."
"Oh no! You must not--I will beat him--and tell him he is bad; then he
shall not do such things again. Now he is sulky; he looks so always
when he is sulky. Is this your home?"
"For the present; I am a visitor."
"But I think you are of this country, because you speak like it."
"Certainly, I am a Tyroler."
"I have to talk English this morning, but I do not like it very much-
-because, also I am half Austrian, and I like it best; but my sister,
Christian, is all English. Here is Miss Naylor; she shall be very angry
with me."
And pointing to the entrance with a rosy-tipped forefinger, she again
looked ruefully at Harz.
There came into the room with a walk like the hopping of a bird an
elderly, small lady, in a grey serge dress, with narrow bands of
claret-coloured velveteen; a large gold cross dangled from a steel chain
on her chest; she nervously twisted her hands, clad in black kid gloves,
rather white about the seams.
Her hair was prematurely grey; her quick eyes brown; her mouth
twisted at one corner; she held her face, kind-looking, but long and
narrow, rather to one side, and wore on it a look of apology. Her quick
sentences sounded as if she kept them on strings, and wanted to draw
them back as soon as she had let them forth.
"Greta, how can, you do such things? I don't know what your father
would say! I am sure I don't know how to--so extraordinary--"

"Please!" said Harz.
"You must come at once--so very sorry--so awkward!" They were
standing in a ring: Harz with his eyebrows working up and down; the
little lady fidgeting her parasol; Greta, flushed and pouting, her eyes all
dewy, twisting an end of fair hair round her finger.
"Oh, look!" The coffee had boiled over. Little brown streams trickled
spluttering from the pan; the dog, with ears laid back and tail tucked in,
went scurrying round the room. A feeling of fellowship fell on them at
once.
"Along the wall is our favourite walk, and Scruff--so awkward, so
unfortunate--we did not think any one lived here--the shutters are
cracked, the paint is peeling off so dreadfully. Have you been long in
Botzen? Two months? Fancy! You are not English? You are Tyrolese?
But you speak English so well--there for seven years? Really? So
fortunate!--It is Greta's day for English."
Miss Naylor's eyes darted bewildered glances at the roof where the
crossing of the beams made such deep shadows; at the litter of brushes,
tools, knives, and colours on a table made out of packing- cases; at the
big window, innocent of glass, and flush with the floor, whence
dangled a bit of rusty chain--relic of the time when the place had been a
store-loft; her eyes were hastily averted from an unfnished figure of the
nude.
Greta, with feet crossed, sat on a coloured blanket, dabbling her fnger
in a little pool of coffee, and gazing up at Harz. And he thought: 'I
should like to paint her like that. "A forget-me-not."'
He took out his chalks to make a sketch of her.
"Shall you show me?" cried out Greta, scrambling to her feet.
"'Will,' Greta--'will'; how often must I tell you? I think we should be
going--it is very late--your father--so very kind of you, but I think we
should be going. Scruff!" Miss Naylor gave the floor two taps. The
terrier backed into a plaster cast which came down on his tail, and sent
him flying through the doorway. Greta followed swiftly, crying:
"Ach! poor Scrufee!"
Miss Naylor crossed the room; bowing, she murmured an apology, and
also disappeared.
Harz was left alone, his guests were gone; the little girl with the fair
hair and the eyes like forget-me-nots, the little lady with kindly

gestures and bird-like walk,