“You’ve no business to do that,” said the girl in a hurt voice; “I want to know.”

“Your heart is not in it,” said Harz.

She looked at him, startled; her eyes had grown thoughtful.

“I suppose that is it.  There are so many other things—­”

“There should be nothing else,” said Harz.

She broke in:  “I don’t want always to be thinking of myself.  Suppose—­”

“Ah!  When you begin supposing!”

The girl confronted him; she had torn the sketch again.

“You mean that if it does not matter enough, one had better not do it at all.  I don’t know if you are right—­I think you are.”

There was the sound of a nervous cough, and Harz saw behind him his three visitors—­Miss Naylor offering him her hand; Greta, flushed, with a bunch of wild flowers, staring intently in his face; and the terrier, sniffing at his trousers.

Miss Naylor broke an awkward silence.

“We wondered if you would still be here, Christian.  I am sorry to interrupt you—­I was not aware that you knew Mr. Herr—­”

“Harz is my name—­we were just talking”

“About my sketch.  Oh, Greta, you do tickle!  Will you come and have breakfast with us to-day, Herr Harz?  It’s our turn, you know.”

Harz, glancing at his dusty clothes, excused himself.

But Greta in a pleading voice said:  “Oh! do come!  Scruff likes you.  It is so dull when there is nobody for breakfast but ourselves.”

Miss Naylor’s mouth began to twist.  Harz hurriedly broke in: 

“Thank you.  I will come with pleasure; you don’t mind my being dirty?”

“Oh no! we do not mind; then we shall none of us wash, and afterwards I shall show you my rabbits.”

Miss Naylor, moving from foot to foot, like a bird on its perch, exclaimed: 

“I hope you won’t regret it, not a very good meal—­the girls are so impulsive—­such informal invitation; we shall be very glad.”

But Greta pulled softly at her sister’s sleeve, and Christian, gathering her things, led the way.

Harz followed in amazement; nothing of this kind had come into his life before.  He kept shyly glancing at the girls; and, noting the speculative innocence in Greta’s eyes, he smiled.  They soon came to two great poplar-trees, which stood, like sentinels, one on either side of an unweeded gravel walk leading through lilac bushes to a house painted dull pink, with green-shuttered windows, and a roof of greenish slate.  Over the door in faded crimson letters were written the words, “Villa Rubein.”

“That is to the stables,” said Greta, pointing down a path, where some pigeons were sunning themselves on a wall.  “Uncle Nic keeps his horses there:  Countess and Cuckoo—­his horses begin with C, because of Chris—­they are quite beautiful.  He says he could drive them to Kingdom-Come and they would not turn their hair.  Bow, and say ‘Good-morning’ to our house!”