“You want me to go away?” he said, fixing his eyes intently on me.

“O yes, if you only would,” I said naively.

He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and put out my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, “I only meant—­that is—­I should think you would understand without my telling you.  A woman cannot bear to have people talk about her, and know who she likes and who she doesn’t.  It kills me to have people talk about me.  I’m not used to society—­I don’t know what is right—­but I don’t think—­I am afraid—­I ought not to have stayed in here and talked to you away from all the others.  It’s that that makes me so uncomfortable.  That, and Richard too.  For I know he doesn’t like to have me pleased with any one.  Do not go away angry with me.  I don’t see why you do not understand.”

My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.

“I am not going away angry,” he said in a low voice, “I will promise not to speak to you again to-night.  Only remember that I have feelings as well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck.”

In a moment more I was alone.  Richard did not come near me, nor seem to notice me, as he passed through the hall.  Presently Mr. Eugene Whitney came in, and I was very glad to see him.

“Won’t you take me to walk on the piazza?” I asked, for everybody else was walking there.  He was only too happy; and so the evening ended commonplace enough.

CHAPTER X.

EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.

     She wanted years to understand
     The grief that he did feel.

     Surrey.

     Love is not love
     That alters where it alteration finds.

This was how the German class was formed.

The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau paused a few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her about the boys.

“Charley gets on very well with his German,” he observed, “but Benny doesn’t make much progress.  He is too young to study much, and acquires chiefly by the ear.  If you only had a German maid, or if you could speak with him yourself, he would make much better progress.”

“Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language,” she replied; “I read it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency.”

“Why will you never speak it with me?” he said.  “And if you will permit me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day.  I have much leisure, and it would be no task to me.”

“I should like it very much, and you are very kind.  But it is so hard to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people in the house, whom I ought to entertain.”

“That is very true, unless you can make it a source of entertainment to them.  Miss Benson—­is she not a German scholar?  She might like to join you.”