The Little Governess

Oh, dear, how she wished that it wasn’t night-time. She’d have much

rather travelled by day, much much rather. But the lady at the

Governess Bureau had said: “You had better take an evening boat and

then if you get into a compartment for ‘Ladies Only’ in the train you

will be far safer than sleeping in a foreign hotel. Don’t go out of the

carriage; don’t walk about the corridors and _be sure_ to lock the

lavatory door if you go there. The train arrives at Munich at eight

o’clock, and Frau Arnholdt says that the Hotel Grunewald is only one

minute away. A porter can take you there. She will arrive at six the

same evening, so you will have a nice quiet day to rest after the

journey and rub up your German. And when you want anything to eat I

would advise you to pop into the nearest baker’s and get a bun and some

coffee. You haven’t been abroad before, have you?” “No.” “Well, I

always tell my girls that it’s better to mistrust people at first

rather than trust them, and it’s safer to suspect people of evil

intentions rather than good ones. . . . It sounds rather hard but we’ve

got to be women of the world, haven’t we?”

It had been nice in the Ladies’ Cabin. The stewardess was so kind and

changed her money for her and tucked up her feet. She lay on one of the

hard pink-sprigged couches and watched the other passengers, friendly

and natural, pinning their hats to the bolsters, taking off their boots

and skirts, opening dressing-cases and arranging mysterious rustling

little packages, tying their heads up in veils before lying down.

_Thud_, _thud_, _thud_, went the steady screw of the steamer. The

stewardess pulled a green shade over the light and sat down by the

stove, her skirt turned back over her knees, a long piece of knitting

on her lap. On a shelf above her head there was a water-bottle with a

tight bunch of flowers stuck in it. “I like travelling very much,”

thought the little governess. She smiled and yielded to the warm

rocking.

But when the boat stopped and she went up on deck, her dress-basket in

one hand, her rug and umbrella in the other, a cold, strange wind flew

under her hat. She looked up at the masts and spars of the ship black

against a green glittering sky and down to the dark landing stage where

strange muffled figures lounged, waiting; she moved forward with the

sleepy flock, all knowing where to go to and what to do except her, and

she felt afraid. Just a little—just enough to wish—oh, to wish that it

was daytime and that one of those women who had smiled at her in the

glass, when they both did their hair in the Ladies’ Cabin, was

somewhere near now. “Tickets, please. Show your tickets. Have your

tickets ready.” She went down the gangway balancing herself carefully

on her heels. Then a man in a black leather cap came forward and

touched her on the arm. “Where for, Miss?” He spoke English—he must be

a guard or a stationmaster with a cap like that. She had scarcely

answered when he pounced on her dress-basket. “This way,” he shouted,

in a rude, determined voice, and elbowing his way he strode past the

people. “But I don’t want a porter.” What a horrible man! “I don’t want

a porter. I want to carry it myself.” She had to run to keep up with

him, and her anger, far stronger than she, ran before her and snatched

the bag out of the wretch’s hand. He paid no attention at all, but

swung on down the long dark platform, and across a railway line. “He is

a robber.” She was sure he was a robber as she stepped between the

silvery rails and felt the cinders crunch under her shoes. On the other

side—oh, thank goodness!—there was a train with Munich written on it.

The man stopped by the huge lighted carriages. “Second class?” asked

the insolent voice. “Yes, a Ladies’ compartment.” She was quite out of

breath. She opened her little purse to find something small enough to

give this horrible man while he tossed her dress-basket into the rack

of an empty carriage that had a ticket, _Dames Seules_, gummed on

window. She got into the train and handed twenty centimes. “What’s

this?” shouted the man, glaring at the money and then at her, holding

it up to his nose, sniffing at it as though he had never in his life

seen, much less held, such a sum. “It’s a franc. You know that, don’t

you? It’s a franc. That’s my fare!” A franc! Did he imagine that she

was going to give him a franc for playing a trick like that just

because she was a girl and travelling alone at night? Never, never! She

squeezed her purse in her hand and simply did not see him—she looked at

a view of St. Malo on the wall opposite and simply did not hear him.

“Ah, no. Ah, no. Four sous. You make a mistake. Here, take it. It’s a

franc I want.” He leapt on to the step of the train and threw the money

on to her lap. Trembling with terror she screwed herself tight, tight,

and put out an icy hand and took the money—stowed it away in her hand.

“That’s all you’re going to get,” she said. For a minute or two she

felt his sharp eyes pricking her all over, while he nodded slowly,

pulling down his mouth: “Ve-ry well. _Trrrès bien._” He shrugged his

shoulders and disappeared into the dark. Oh, the relief! How simply

terrible that had been! As she stood up to feel if the dress-basket was

firm she caught sight of herself in the mirror, quite white, with big

round eyes. She untied her “motor veil” and unbuttoned her green cape.

“But it’s all over now,” she said to the mirror face, feeling in some

way that it was more frightened than she.

People began to assemble on the platform. They stood together in little

groups talking; a strange light from the station lamps painted their

faces almost green. A little boy in red clattered up with a huge tea

wagon and leaned against it, whistling and flicking his boots with a

serviette. A woman in a black alpaca apron pushed a barrow with pillows

for hire. Dreamy and vacant she looked—like a woman wheeling a

perambulator—up and down, up and down—with a sleeping baby inside it.

Wreaths of white smoke floated up from somewhere and hung below the

roof like misty vines. “How strange it all is,” thought the little

governess, “and the middle of the night, too.” She looked out from her

safe corner, frightened no longer but proud that she had not given that

franc. “I can look after myself—of course I can. The great thing is not

to——” Suddenly from the corridor there came a stamping of feet and

men’s voices, high and broken with snatches of loud laughter. They were

coming her way. The little governess shrank into her corner as four

young men in bowler hats passed, staring through the door and window.

One of them, bursting with the joke, pointed to the notice _Dames

Seules_ and the four bent down the better to see the one little girl in

the corner. Oh dear, they were in the carriage next door. She heard

them tramping about and then a sudden hush followed by a tall thin

fellow with a tiny black moustache who flung her door open. “If

mademoiselle cares to come in with us,” he said, in French. She saw the

others crowding behind him, peeping under his arm and over his

shoulder, and she sat very straight and still. “If mademoiselle will do

us the honour,” mocked the tall man. One of them could be quiet no

longer; his laughter went off in a loud crack. “Mademoiselle is

serious,” persisted the young man, bowing and grimacing. He took off

his hat with a flourish, and she was alone again.

“_En voiture. En voi-ture!_” Some one ran up and down beside the train.

“I wish it wasn’t night-time. I wish there was another woman in the

carriage. I’m frightened of the men next door.” The little governess

looked out to see her porter coming back again—the same man making for

her carriage with his arms full of luggage. But—but what _was_ he

doing? He put his thumb nail under the label _Dames Seules_ and tore it

right off and then stood aside squinting at her while an old man

wrapped in a plaid cape climbed up the high step. “But this is a

ladies’ compartment.” “Oh, no, Mademoiselle, you make a mistake. No,

no, I assure you. Merci, Monsieur.” “_En voi-turre!_” A shrill whistle.

The porter stepped off triumphant and the train started. For a moment

or two big tears brimmed her eyes and through them she saw the old man

unwinding a scarf from his neck and untying the flaps of his Jaeger

cap. He looked very old. Ninety at least. He had a white moustache and

big gold-rimmed spectacles with little blue eyes behind them and pink

wrinkled cheeks. A nice face—and charming the way he bent forward and

said in halting French: “Do I disturb you, Mademoiselle? Would you

rather I took all these things out of the rack and found another

carriage?” What! that old man have to move all those heavy things just

because she . . . “No, it’s quite all right. You don’t disturb me at

all.” “Ah, a thousand thanks.” He sat down opposite her and unbuttoned

the cape of his enormous coat and flung it off his shoulders.

The train seemed glad to have left the station. With a long leap it

sprang into the dark. She rubbed a place in the window with her glove

but she could see nothing—just a tree outspread like a black fan or a

scatter of lights, or the line of a hill, solemn and huge. In the

carriage next door the young men started singing “_Un, deux, trois._”

They sang the same song over and over at the tops of their voices.

“I never could have dared to go to sleep if I had been alone,” she

decided. “_I couldn’t_ have put my feet up or even taken off my hat.”

The singing gave her a queer little tremble in her stomach and, hugging

herself to stop it, with her arms crossed under her cape, she felt

really glad to have the old man in the carriage with her. Careful to

see that he was not looking she peeped at him through her long lashes.

He sat extremely upright, the chest thrown out, the chin well in, knees

pressed together, reading a German paper. That was why he spoke French

so funnily. He was a German. Something in the army, she supposed—a

Colonel or a General—once, of course, not now; he was too old for that

now. How spick and span he looked for an old man. He wore a pearl pin

stuck in his black tie and a ring with a dark red stone on his little

finger; the tip of a white silk handkerchief showed in the pocket of

his double-breasted jacket. Somehow, altogether, he was really nice to

look at. Most old men were so horrid. She couldn’t bear them doddery—or

they had a disgusting cough or something. But not having a beard—that

made all the difference—and then his cheeks were so pink and his

moustache so very white. Down went the German paper and the old man

leaned forward with the same delightful courtesy: “Do you speak German,

Mademoiselle?” “_Ja, ein wenig, mehr als Franzosisch_,” said the little

governess, blushing a deep pink colour that spread slowly over her

cheeks and made her blue eyes look almost black. “Ach, so!” The old man

bowed graciously. “Then perhaps you would care to look at some

illustrated papers.” He slipped a rubber band from a little roll of

them and handed them across. “Thank you very much.” She was very fond

of looking at pictures, but first she would take off her hat and

gloves. So she stood up, unpinned the brown straw and put it neatly in

the rack beside the dress-basket, stripped off her brown kid gloves,

paired them in a tight roll and put them in the crown of the hat for

safety, and then sat down again, more comfortably this time, her feet

crossed, the papers on her lap. How kindly the old man in the corner

watched her bare little hand turning over the big white pages, watched

her lips moving as she pronounced the long words to herself, rested

upon her hair that fairly blazed under the light. Alas! how tragic for

a little governess to possess hair that made one think of tangerines

and marigolds, of apricots and tortoiseshell cats and champagne!

Perhaps that was what the old man was thinking as he gazed and gazed,

and that not even the dark ugly clothes could disguise her soft beauty.

Perhaps the flush that licked his cheeks and lips was a flush of rage

that anyone so young and tender should have to travel alone and

unprotected through the night. Who knows he was not murmuring in his

sentimental German fashion: “_Ja, es ist eine Tragœdie!_ Would to God I

were the child’s grandpapa!”

“Thank you very much. They were very interesting.” She smiled prettily

handing back the papers. “But you speak German extremely well,” said

the old man. “You have been in Germany before, of course?” “Oh no, this

is the first time”—a little pause, then—“this is the first time that I

have ever been abroad at all.” “Really! I am surprised. You gave me the

impression, if I may say so, that you were accustomed to travelling.”

“Oh, well—I have been about a good deal in England, and to Scotland,

once.” “So. I myself have been in England once, but I could not learn

English.” He raised one hand and shook his head, laughing. “No, it was

too difficult for me. . . . ‘Ow-do-you-do. Please vich is ze vay to

Leicestaire Squaare.’” She laughed too. “Foreigners always say . . .”

They had quite a little talk about it. “But you will like Munich,” said

the old man. “Munich is a wonderful city. Museums, pictures, galleries,

fine buildings and shops, concerts, theatres, restaurants—all are in

Munich. I have travelled all over Europe many, many times in my life,

but it is always to Munich that I return. You will enjoy yourself

there.” “I am not going to _stay_ in Munich,” said the little

governess, and she added shyly, “I am going to a post as governess to a

doctor’s family in Augsburg.” “Ah, that was it.” Augsburg he knew.

Augsburg—well—was not beautiful. A solid manufacturing town. But if

Germany was new to her he hoped she would find something interesting

there too. “I am sure I shall.” “But what a pity not to see Munich

before you go. You ought to take a little holiday on your way”—he

smiled—“and store up some pleasant memories.” “I am afraid I could not

do _that_,” said the little governess, shaking her head, suddenly

important and serious. “And also, if one is alone . . .” He quite

understood. He bowed, serious too. They were silent after that. The

train shattered on, baring its dark, flaming breast to the hills and to

the valleys. It was warm in the carriage. She seemed to lean against

the dark rushing and to be carried away and away. Little sounds made

themselves heard; steps in the corridor, doors opening and shutting—a

murmur of voices—whistling. . . . Then the window was pricked with long

needles of rain. . . . But it did not matter . . . it was outside . . .

and she had her umbrella . . . she pouted, sighed, opened and shut her

hands once and fell fast asleep.

“Pardon! Pardon!” The sliding back of the carriage door woke her with a

start. What had happened? Some one had come in and gone out again. The

old man sat in his corner, more upright than ever, his hands in the

pockets of his coat, frowning heavily. “Ha! ha! ha!” came from the

carriage next door. Still half asleep, she put her hands to her hair to

make sure it wasn’t a dream. “Disgraceful!” muttered the old man more

to himself than to her. “Common, vulgar fellows! I am afraid they

disturbed you, gracious Fräulein, blundering in here like that.” No,

not really. She was just going to wake up, and she took out silver

watch to look at the time. Half-past four. A cold blue light filled the

window panes. Now when she rubbed a place she could see bright patches

of fields, a clump of white houses like mushrooms, a road “like a

picture” with poplar trees on either side, a thread of river. How

pretty it was! How pretty and how different! Even those pink clouds in

the sky looked foreign. It was cold, but she pretended that it was far

colder and rubbed her hands together and shivered, pulling at the

collar of her coat because she was so happy.

The train began to slow down. The engine gave a long shrill whistle.

They were coming to a town. Taller houses, pink and yellow, glided by,

fast asleep behind their green eyelids, and guarded by the poplar trees

that quivered in the blue air as if on tiptoe, listening. In one house

a woman opened the shutters, flung a red and white mattress across the

window frame and stood staring at the train. A pale woman with black

hair and a white woollen shawl over her shoulders. More women appeared

at the doors and at the windows of the sleeping houses. There came a

flock of sheep. The shepherd wore a blue blouse and pointed wooden

shoes. Look! look what flowers—and by the railway station too! Standard

roses like bridesmaids’ bouquets, white geraniums, waxy pink ones that

you would _never_ see out of a greenhouse at home. Slower and slower. A

man with a watering-can was spraying the platform. “A-a-a-ah!” Somebody

came running and waving his arms. A huge fat woman waddled through the

glass doors of the station with a tray of strawberries. Oh, she was

thirsty! She was very thirsty! “A-a-a-ah!” The same somebody ran back

again. The train stopped.

The old man pulled his coat round him and got up, smiling at her. He

murmured something she didn’t quite catch, but she smiled back at him

as he left the carriage. While he was away the little governess looked

at herself again in the glass, shook and patted herself with the

precise practical care of a girl who is old enough to travel by herself

and has nobody else to assure her that she is “quite all right behind.”

Thirsty and thirsty! The air tasted of water. She let down the window

and the fat woman with the strawberries passed as if on purpose;

holding up the tray to her. “_Nein, danke,_” said the little governess,

looking at the big berries on their gleaming leaves. “_Wie viel?_” she

asked as the fat woman moved away. “Two marks fifty, Fräulein.” “Good

gracious!” She came in from the window and sat down in the corner, very

sobered for a minute. Half a crown! “H-o-o-o-o-o-e-e-e!” shrieked the

train, gathering itself together to be off again. She hoped the old man

wouldn’t be left behind. Oh, it was daylight—everything was lovely if

only she hadn’t been so thirsty. Where _was_ the old man—oh, here he

was—she dimpled at him as though he were an old accepted friend as he

closed the door and, turning, took from under his cape a basket of the

strawberries. “If Fräulein would honour me by accepting these . . .”

“What for me?” But she drew back and raised her hands as though he were

about to put a wild little kitten on her lap.

“Certainly, for you,” said the old man. “For myself it is twenty years

since I was brave enough to eat strawberries.” “Oh, thank you very

much. _Danke bestens_,” she stammered, “_sie sind so sehr schön!_” “Eat

them and see,” said the old man looking pleased and friendly. “You

won’t have even one?” “No, no, no.” Timidly and charmingly her hand

hovered. They were so big and juicy she had to take two bites to

them—the juice ran all down her fingers—and it was while she munched

the berries that she first thought of the old man as a grandfather.

What a perfect grandfather he would make! Just like one out of a book!

The sun came out, the pink clouds in the sky, the strawberry clouds

were eaten by the blue. “Are they good?” asked the old man. “As good as

they look?”

When she had eaten them she felt she had known him for years. She told

him about Frau Arnholdt and how she had got the place. Did he know the

Hotel Grunewald? Frau Arnholdt would not arrive until the evening. He

listened, listened until he knew as much about the affair as she did,

until he said—not looking at her—but smoothing the palms of his brown

suède gloves together: “I wonder if you would let me show you a little

of Munich to-day. Nothing much—but just perhaps a picture gallery and

the Englischer Garten. It seems such a pity that you should have to

spend the day at the hotel, and also a little uncomfortable . . . in a

strange place. _Nicht wahr?_ You would be back there by the early

afternoon or whenever you wish, of course, and you would give an old

man a great deal of pleasure.”

It was not until long after she had said “Yes”—because the moment she

had said it and he had thanked her he began telling her about his

travels in Turkey and attar of roses—that she wondered whether she had

done wrong. After all, she really did not know him. But he was so old

and he had been so very kind—not to mention the strawberries. . . . And

she couldn’t have explained the reason why she said “No,” and it was

her _last_ day in a way, her last day to really enjoy herself in. “Was

I wrong? Was I?” A drop of sunlight fell into her hands and lay there,

warm and quivering. “If I might accompany you as far as the hotel,” he

suggested, “and call for you again at about ten o’clock.” He took out

his pocket-book and handed her a card. “Herr Regierungsrat. . . .” He

had a title! Well, it was _bound_ to be all right! So after that the

little governess gave herself up to the excitement of being really

abroad, to looking out and reading the foreign advertisement signs, to

being told about the places they came to—having her attention and

enjoyment looked after by the charming old grandfather—until they

reached Munich and the Hauptbahnhof. “Porter! Porter!” He found her a

porter, disposed of his own luggage in a few words, guided her through

the bewildering crowd out of the station down the clean white steps

into the white road to the hotel. He explained who she was to the

manager as though all this had been bound to happen, and then for one

moment her little hand lost itself in the big brown suède ones. “I will

call for you at ten o’clock.” He was gone.

“This way, Fräulein,” said a waiter, who had been dodging behind the

manager’s back, all eyes and ears for the strange couple. She followed

him up two flights of stairs into a dark bedroom. He dashed down her

dress-basket and pulled up a clattering, dusty blind. Ugh! what an

ugly, cold room—what enormous furniture! Fancy spending the day in

here! “Is this the room Frau Arnholdt ordered?” asked the little

governess. The waiter had a curious way of staring as if there was

something _funny_ about her. He pursed up his lips about to whistle,

and then changed his mind. “_Gewiss_,” he said. Well, why didn’t he go?

Why did he stare so? “_Gehen Sie,_” said the little governess, with

frigid English simplicity. His little eyes, like currants, nearly

popped out of his doughy cheeks. “_Gehen Sie sofort,_” she repeated

icily. At the door he turned. “And the gentleman,” said he, “shall I

show the gentleman upstairs when he comes?”

Over the white streets big white clouds fringed with silver—and

sunshine everywhere. Fat, fat coachmen driving fat cabs; funny women

with little round hats cleaning the tramway lines; people laughing and

pushing against one another; trees on both sides of the streets and

everywhere you looked almost, immense fountains; a noise of laughing

from the footpaths or the middle of the streets or the open windows.

And beside her, more beautifully brushed than ever, with a rolled

umbrella in one hand and yellow gloves instead of brown ones, her

grandfather who had asked her to spend the day. She wanted to run, she

wanted to hang on his arm, she wanted to cry every minute, “Oh, I am so

frightfully happy!” He guided her across the roads, stood still while

she “looked,” and his kind eyes beamed on her and he said “just

whatever you wish.” She ate two white sausages and two little rolls of

fresh bread at eleven o’clock in the morning and she drank some beer,

which he told her wasn’t intoxicating, wasn’t at all like English beer,

out of a glass like a flower vase. And then they took a cab and really

she must have seen thousands and thousands of wonderful classical

pictures in about a quarter of an hour! “I shall have to think them

over when I am alone.” . . . But when they came out of the picture

gallery it was raining. The grandfather unfurled his umbrella and held

it over the little governess. They started to walk to the restaurant

for lunch. She, very close beside him so that he should have some of

the umbrella, too. “It goes easier,” he remarked in a detached way, “if

you take my arm, Fräulein. And besides it is the custom in Germany.” So

she took his arm and walked beside him while he pointed out the famous

statues, so interested that he quite forgot to put down the umbrella

even when the rain was long over.

After lunch they went to a café to hear a gipsy band, but she did not

like that at all. Ugh! such horrible men where there with heads like

eggs and cuts on their faces, so she turned her chair and cupped her

burning cheeks in her hands and watched her old friend instead. . . .

Then they went to the Englischer Garten.

“I wonder what the time is,” asked the little governess. “My watch has

stopped. I forgot to wind it in the train last night. We’ve seen such a

lot of things that I feel it must be quite late.” “Late!” He stopped in

front of her laughing and shaking his head in a way she had begun to

know. “Then you have not really enjoyed yourself. Late! Why, we have

not had any ice cream yet!” “Oh, but I have enjoyed myself,” she cried,

distressed, “more than I can possibly say. It has been wonderful! Only

Frau Arnholdt is to be at the hotel at six and I ought to be there by

five.” “So you shall. After the ice cream I shall put you into a cab

and you can go there comfortably.” She was happy again. The chocolate

ice cream melted—melted in little sips a long way down. The shadows of

the trees danced on the table cloths, and she sat with her back safely

turned to the ornamental clock that pointed to twenty-five minutes to

seven. “Really and truly,” said the little governess earnestly, “this

has been the happiest day of my life. I’ve never even imagined such a

day.” In spite of the ice cream her grateful baby heart glowed with

love for the fairy grandfather.

So they walked out of the garden down a long alley. The day was nearly

over. “You see those big buildings opposite,” said the old man. “The

third storey—that is where I live. I and the old housekeeper who looks

after me.” She was very interested. “Now just before I find a cab for

you, will you come and see my little ‘home’ and let me give you a

bottle of the attar of roses I told you about in the train? For

remembrance?” She would love to. “I’ve never seen a bachelor’s flat in

my life,” laughed the little governess.

The passage was quite dark. “Ah, I suppose my old woman has gone out to

buy me a chicken. One moment.” He opened a door and stood aside for her

to pass, a little shy but curious, into a strange room. She did not

know quite what to say. It wasn’t pretty. In a way it was very ugly—but

neat, and, she supposed, comfortable for such an old man. “Well, what

do you think of it?” He knelt down and took from a cupboard a round

tray with two pink glasses and a tall pink bottle. “Two little bedrooms

beyond,” he said gaily, “and a kitchen. It’s enough, eh?” “Oh, quite

enough.” “And if ever you should be in Munich and care to spend a day

or two—why there is always a little nest—a wing of a chicken, and a

salad, and an old man delighted to be your host once more and many many

times, dear little Fräulein!” He took the stopper out of the bottle and

poured some wine into the two pink glasses. His hand shook and the wine

spilled over the tray. It was very quiet in the room. She said: “I

think I ought to go now.” “But you will have a tiny glass of wine with

me—just one before you go?” said the old man. “No, really no. I never

drink wine. I—I have promised never to touch wine or anything like

that.” And though he pleaded and though she felt dreadfully rude,

especially when he seemed to take it to heart so, she was quite

determined. “No, _really_, please.” “Well, will you just sit down on

the sofa for five minutes and let me drink your health?” The little

governess sat down on the edge of the red velvet couch and he sat down

beside her and drank her health at a gulp. “Have you really been happy

to-day?” asked the old man, turning round, so close beside her that she

felt his knee twitching against hers. Before she could answer he held

her hands. “And are you going to give me one little kiss before you

go?” he asked, drawing her closer still.

It was a dream! It wasn’t true! It wasn’t the same old man at all. Ah,

how horrible! The little governess stared at him in terror. “No, no,

no!” she stammered, struggling out of his hands. “One little kiss. A

kiss. What is it? Just a kiss, dear little Fräulein. A kiss.” He pushed

his face forward, his lips smiling broadly; and how his little blue

eyes gleamed behind the spectacles! “Never—never. How can you!” She

sprang up, but he was too quick and he held her against the wall,

pressed against her his hard old body and his twitching knee and,

though she shook her head from side to side, distracted, kissed her on

the mouth. On the mouth! Where not a soul who wasn’t a near relation

had ever kissed her before. . . .

She ran, ran down the street until she found a broad road with tram

lines and a policeman standing in the middle like a clockwork doll. “I

want to get a tram to the Hauptbahnhof,” sobbed the little governess.

“Fräulein?” She wrung her hands at him. “The Hauptbahnhof.

There—there’s one now,” and while he watched very much surprised, the

little girl with her hat on one side, crying without a handkerchief,

sprang on to the tram—not seeing the conductor’s eyebrows, nor hearing

the _hochwohlgebildete Dame_ talking her over with a scandalized

friend. She rocked herself and cried out loud and said “Ah, ah!”

pressing her hands to her mouth. “She has been to the dentist,”

shrilled a fat old woman, too stupid to be uncharitable. “_Na, sagen

Sie ’mal_, what toothache! The child hasn’t one left in her mouth.”

While the tram swung and jangled through a world full of old men with

twitching knees.

When the little governess reached the hall of the Hotel Grunewald the

same waiter who had come into her room in the morning was standing by

table, polishing a tray of glasses. The sight of the little governess

seemed to fill him out with some inexplicable important content. He was

ready for her question; his answer came pat and suave. “Yes, Fräulein,

the lady has been here. I told her that you had arrived and gone out

again immediately with a gentleman. She asked me when you were coming

back again—but of course I could not say. And then she went to the

manager.” He took up a glass from the table, held it up to the light,

looked at it with one eye closed, and started polishing it with a

corner of his apron. “. . . ?” “Pardon, Fräulein? Ach, no, Fräulein.

The manager could tell her nothing—nothing.” He shook his head and

smiled at the brilliant glass. “Where is the lady now?” asked the

little governess, shuddering so violently that she had to hold her

handkerchief up to her mouth. “How should I know?” cried the waiter,

and as he swooped past her to pounce upon a new arrival his heart beat

so hard against his ribs that he nearly chuckled aloud. “That’s it!

that’s it!” he thought. “That will show her.” And as he swung the new

arrival’s box on to his shoulders—hoop!—as though he were a giant and

the box a feather, he minced over again the little governess’s words,

“_Gehen Sie. Gehen Sie sofort._ Shall I! Shall I!” he shouted to

himself.