No, it was certainly not for the dear Lord that she had swept; she would have her room swept out to-morrow or the day after, and garnished.  Her hands began to swell again into huge pillows of nothingness.  Then they shrank, and so did her head, to minute dots.  It occurred to her that she was waiting for some event, some tremendously important event, to come to pass.  She lay with shut eyes for a long time till her head and hands should return to their proper size.

She opened her eyes with a jerk.

‘How stupid of me,’ she said aloud, ’to set the room in order for a parcel of dirty little children!’

They were there—­five of them, two little boys and three girls—­headed by the anxious-eyed ten-year-old whom she had seen before.  They must have entered by the outer door, which Anna had neglected to shut behind her when she returned with the inhaler.  She counted them backward and forward as one counts scales—­one, two, three, four, five.

They took no notice of her, but hung about, first on one foot then on the other, like strayed chickens, the smaller ones holding by the larger.  They had the air of utterly wearied passengers in a railway waiting-room, and their clothes were disgracefully dirty.

‘Go away!’ cried Frau Ebermann at last, after she had struggled, it seemed to her, for years to shape the words.

‘You called?’ said Anna at the living-room door.

‘No,’ said her mistress.  ‘Did you shut the flat door when you came in?’

‘Assuredly,’ said Anna.  ‘Besides, it is made to catch shut of itself.’

‘Then go away,’ said she, very little above a whisper.  If Anna pretended not to see the children, she would speak to Anna later on.

‘And now,’ she said, turning toward them as soon as the door closed.  The smallest of the crowd smiled at her, and shook his head before he buried it in his sister’s skirts.

‘Why—­don’t—­you—­go—­away?’ she whispered earnestly.

Again they took no notice, but, guided by the elder girl, set themselves to climb, boots and all, on to the green plush sofa in front of the radiator.  The little boys had to be pushed, as they could not compass the stretch unaided.  They settled themselves in a row, with small gasps of relief, and pawed the plush approvingly.

‘I ask you—­I ask you why do you not go away—­why do you not go away?’ Frau Ebermann found herself repeating the question twenty times.  It seemed to her that everything in the world hung on the answer.  ’You know you should not come into houses and rooms unless you are invited.  Not houses and bedrooms, you know.’

‘No,’ a solemn little six-year-old repeated, ’not houses nor bedrooms, nor dining-rooms, nor churches, nor all those places.  Shouldn’t come in.  It’s rude.’

‘Yes, he said so,’ the younger girl put in proudly.  ’He said it.  He told them only pigs would do that.’  The line nodded and dimpled one to another with little explosive giggles, such as children use when they tell deeds of great daring against their elders.