The Reffolds were rich, and lived in a suite of apartments in the more luxurious part of the Kurhaus.

Bernardine knocked at the door, and the nurse came to open it.

“Mrs. Reffold asks me to visit Mr. Reffold,” Bernardine said; and the nurse showed her into the pleasant sitting-room.

Mr. Reffold was lying on the sofa.  He looked up as Bernardine came in, and a smile of pleasure spread over his wan face.

“I don’t know whether I intrude,” said Bernardine; “but Mrs. Reffold said I might come to see you.”

Mr. Reffold signed to the nurse to withdraw.

She had never before spoken to him.  She had often seen him lying by himself in the sunshine.

“Are you paid for coming to me he?” asked eagerly.

The words seemed rude enough, but there was no rudeness in the manner.

“No, I am not paid,” she said gently; and then she took a chair and sat near him.

“Ah, that’s well!” he said, with a sigh of relief “I’m so tired of paid service.  To know that things are done for me because a certain amount of francs are given so that those things may be done—­well, one gets weary of it; that’s all!”

There was bitterness in every word he spoke.  “I lie here,” he said, “and the loneliness of it—­the loneliness of it!”

“Shall I read to you?” she asked kindly.  She did not know what to say to him.

“I want to talk first,” he replied.  “I want to talk first to some one who is not paid for talking to me.  I have often watched you, and wondered who you were.  Why do you look so sad?  No one is waiting for you to die?”

“Don’t talk like that!” she said; and she bent over him and arranged the cushions for him more comfortably.  He looked just like a great lank tired child.

“Are you one of my wife’s friends?” he asked.

“I don’t suppose I am,” she answered gently; “but I like her, all the same.  Indeed, I like her very much.  And I think her beautiful!”

“Ah, she is beautiful!” he said eagerly.  “Doesn’t she look splendid in her furs?  By Jove, you are right!  She is a beautiful woman.  I am proud of her!”

Then the smile faded from his face.

“Beautiful,” he said half to himself, “but hard.”

“Come now,” said Bernardine; “you are surrounded with books and newspapers.  What shall I read to you?”

“No one reads what I want,” he answered peevishly.  “My tastes are not their tastes.  I don’t suppose you would care to read what I want to hear!”

“Well,” she said cheerily, “try me.  Make your choice.”

“Very well, the Sporting and Dramatic,” he said.  “Read every word of that.  And about that theatrical divorce case.  And every word of that too.  Don’t you skip, and cheat me.”

She laughed and settled herself down to amuse him.  And he listened contentedly.

“That is something like literature,” he said once or twice.  “I can understand papers of that sort going like wild-fire.”