His own exclusiveness was very nearly as complete.  He formed no intimacies among the members of the orchestra with whom he played eight times a week, although his face showed, sometimes, that he yearned to join their gossip, in the stuffy little room beneath the stage, which housed them when they were not in their places in the crowded space “in front” allotted to them.

“Tiens!” said the Frenchman who played second-violin.  “Ze ol’ man have such fear zat we should wiss to spik us wiz ’is daughtaire, zat ’e trit us lak we ’ave a seeckness catchable!”

It was almost true.  He did avoid the chance of making her acquainted with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into contact, with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of contagion for her.  But not all the members of the orchestra resented it.  The drummer (who also played the triangle and tambourine when need was, imitated railway noises with shrewd implements, pumped an auto-horn when motor-cars were supposed to be approaching or departing “off-stage” and made himself, in general, a useful man on all occasions) was his firm friend and partisan.

“Garn, Frawgs!” he sneered, to the resentful Frenchman.  “Yer ’yn’t fit ter sye ther time o’ dye ter ’er; yer knows yer ’yn’t.”

“Wat?  To ze daughtaire of a flute!” the Second-Violin replied.  “W’y—­”

“Garn!” said the drummer.  “Sye, yer myke me sick!  You, with yer black-’aired fyce an’ paytent boots!  Hi bean ‘ammerin’ ’ide in horchestras since me tenth birthdye, but Hi knows a hangel w’en Hi sees one, an’ lawst night Hi missed a ’ole bar on the snare fer lookin’ up at ’er just once.  Hi never see a brunette look so habsolutely hinnocent.  Th’ Ol’ Nick’s peekin’ out o’ brunettes’ faces, somew’eres, mostly.  Don’t know w’at she myde me think of—­m’ybe wreaths o’ roses red an’ pink, an’ m’ybe crowns o’ di’mun’s—­but Hi missed a ‘ole bar on th’ snare fer thinking somethink.”

“Tiens!” the Frenchman began scornfully.  “He is too much—­”

“Garn!” said the drummer, threateningly, and it may be that the tinkle of the “ready” bell prevented something more than words between them, for the drummer, at the time, was holding the bass-drum-stick.  He could have struck a mighty blow with it.

Just when the thought of leaving for America first began to grow in Kreutzer’s mind, it would be hard to say, but it took definite form immediately subsequent to the London visit of a Most Exalted Personage from Prussia.  On the last day of this Most Exalted Personage’s stay Herr Kreutzer was enjoying, with his Anna, the long Sunday twilight in Hyde Park.  They often strolled there of a Sunday evening.  The Most Exalted Personage, being in a democratic mood and wishful of seeing London and its people quietly, was also strolling in Hyde Park and met the father and the daughter, face to face.