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Updated: June 2, 2025
He hesitated between a wish to see her in a more comfortable position, and an unwillingness to disturb her. Finally, he took an eider-down quilt from the bed, and wrapped it round her; then slipped noiselessly from the room. It was past eight o'clock. Ephie ran down the stairs as if a spectre were at her heels, and even when in the street, did not venture to slacken her speed.
"Have you remembered everything he pointed out to you at your last lesson?" asked Johanna, going over to the music-stand, and peering at the pages with her shortsighted eyes. "Let me see what was it now? Something about this double-stopping here, and the fingering in this position." Ephie laughed. "Old Joan, what do you know about it?" "Not much, dear, I admit," said Johanna pleasantly.
This was the last straw; Ephie dropped on a chair, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into the tears she had hitherto restrained. Her previous trouble was increased a hundredfold. For she had recognised Louise at once; she felt that she was in a trap; and the person who had entrapped her was Maurice. Holding a tiny lace handkerchief to her eyes, she sobbed as though her heart would break.
"No, never!" retorted Johanna, and squared her shoulders. But there was more to be said she had worse to learn before Ephie was handed over to her care. "And Ephie has been very foolish," he began anew, without looking at her. "It seems from what she has told me tonight that she has been to see this man ... been at his rooms ... more than once."
Did you hear what she said? It wasn't true, was it? Oh, it can't be!" "It was quite true, Ephie. What he told YOU wasn't true. He never really cared for anyone but her. They were were engaged for years." At this, she wept so heart-rendingly that he was afraid Frau Krause would come in and interfere. "You MUST control yourself. Crying won't alter things now.
Other people grew attentive, and Dove went into a seventh heaven, which made it hard for him placidly to accept the fit of pettish silence, she subsequently fell into. The crowning touch was put to this disastrous evening by the fact that Schilsky's companion of the FOYER walked the greater part of the way home with them; and, what was worse, that she took not the slightest notice of Ephie.
Now, after she had heard the opera, she felt aggrieved with Dove as well; as far as she had been able to gather from his vague explanations, from the bawling of the singers, and from subsequent events, the first act treated of relations so infamous that, by common consent, they are considered non-existent; and Johanna was of the opinion that, instead of being so ready to take tickets for them, Dove might have let drop a hint of the nature of the piece Ephie wished to see.
She was about to ring a second time, when felt slippers and an oil lamp moved along the passage, the glass window was opened, and a woman's face peered out at her. Yes, Herr Guest lived there, certainly, said Frau Krause, divided between curiosity and indignation at having to rise from bed; and she held the lamp above her head, in order to see Ephie better.
When, after ten long days, she saw him again, an unfailing instinct guided her aright. It was in the vestibule, as she was leaving the building, and they met face to face. Directly she espied him, though her heart thumped alarmingly, Ephie tossed her head, gazed fixedly at some distant object, and was altogether as haughty as her parted lips would allow of.
The stair was poorly lighted, and full of unsavoury smells. In her agitation, Ephie rang on a wrong floor, and a strange man answered her timid inquiry. She climbed a flight higher, and rang again. There was a long and ominous pause, in which her heart beat fast; if Maurice did not live here either, she would drop where she stood.
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