In their room the two girls sat long at the window to cool themselves before undressing.

“Ah!” sighed Greta, “this is the happiest birthday I have had.”

Cristian too thought:  ’I have never been so happy in my life as I have been to-day.  I should like every day to be like this!’ And she leant out into the night, to let the air cool her cheeks.

“Chris!” said Greta some days after this, “Miss Naylor danced last evening; I think she shall have a headache to-day.  There is my French and my history this morning.”

“Well, I can take them.”

“That is nice; then we can talk.  I am sorry about the headache.  I shall give her some of my Eau de Cologne.”

Miss Naylor’s headaches after dancing were things on which to calculate.  The girls carried their books into the arbour; it was a showery day, and they had to run for shelter through the raindrops and sunlight.

“The French first, Chris!” Greta liked her French, in which she was not far inferior to Christian; the lesson therefore proceeded in an admirable fashion.  After one hour exactly by her watch (Mr. Treffry’s birthday present loved and admired at least once every hour) Greta rose.

“Chris, I have not fed my rabbits.”

“Be quick! there’s not much time for history.”

Greta vanished.  Christian watched the bright water dripping from the roof; her lips were parted in a smile.  She was thinking of something Harz had said the night before.  A discussion having been started as to whether average opinion did, or did not, safeguard Society, Harz, after sitting silent, had burst out:  “I think one man in earnest is better than twenty half-hearted men who follow tamely; in the end he does Society most good.”

Dawney had answered:  “If you had your way there would be no Society.”

“I hate Society because it lives upon the weak.”

“Bah!” Herr Paul chimed in; “the weak goes to the wall; that is as certain as that you and I are here.”

“Let them fall against the wall,” cried Harz; “don’t push them there....”

Greta reappeared, walking pensively in the rain.

“Bino,” she said, sighing, “has eaten too much.  I remember now, I did feed them before.  Must we do the history, Chris?”

“Of course!”

Greta opened her book, and put a finger in the page.  “Herr Harz is very kind to me,” she said.  “Yesterday he brought a bird which had. come into his studio with a hurt wing; he brought it very gently in his handkerchief—­he is very kind, the bird was not even frightened of him.  You did not know about that, Chris?”

Chris flushed a little, and said in a hurt voice

“I don’t see what it has to—­do with me.”

“No,” assented Greta.

Christian’s colour deepened.  “Go on with your history, Greta.”

“Only,” pursued Greta, “that he always tells you all about things, Chris.”