" Pardon ! Pardon ! " The sliding back of the carriage door woke her with a start. What had happened ? Some one had come in and gone out again. The old man sat in his corner, more upright than ever, his hands in the pockets of his coat, frowning heavily. " Ha ! ha ! ha !" came from the carriage next door. Still half asleep, she put her hands to her hair to make sure it wasn't a dream. " Disgraceful! " muttered the old man more to himself than to her. " Common, vulgar fellows! I am afraid they disturbed you, gracious Fraulein, blundering in here like that." No, not really. She page 250was just going to wake up, and she took out her silver watch to look at the time. Half-past four. A cold blue light filled the window panes. Now when she rubbed a place she could see bright patches of fields, a clump of white houses like mushrooms, a road " like a picture " with poplar trees on either side, a thread of river. How pretty it was ! How pretty and how different! Even those pink clouds in the sky looked foreign. It was cold, but she pretended that it was far colder and rubbed her hands together and shivered, pulling at the collar of her coat because she was so happy.

The train began to slow down. The engine gave a long shrill whistle. They were coming to a town. Taller houses, pink and yellow, glided by, fast asleep behind their green eyelids, and guarded by the poplar trees that quivered in the blue air as if on tiptoe, listening. In one house a woman opened the shutters, flung a red and white mattress across the window frame and stood staring at the train. A pale woman with black hair and a white woollen shawl over her shoulders. More women appeared at the doors and at the windows of the sleeping houses. There came a flock of sheep. The shepherd wore a blue blouse and pointed wooden shoes. Look! look what flowers—and by the railway station too ! Standard roses like bridesmaids' bouquets, white geraniums, waxy pink ones that you would never see out of a greenhouse at home. Slower and slower. A man with a page 251watering-can was spraying the platform. " A-a-a-ah ! " Somebody came running and waving his arms. A huge fat woman waddled through the glass doors of the station with a tray of strawberries. Oh, she was thirsty ! She was very thirsty! " A-a-a-ah ! " The same somebody ran back again. The train stopped.

The old man pulled his coat round him and got up, smiling at her. He murmured something she didn't quite catch, but she smiled back at him as he left the carriage. While he was away the little governess looked at herself again in the glass, shook and patted herself with the precise practical care of a girl who is old enough to travel by herself and has nobody else to assure her that she is " quite all right behind." Thirsty and thirsty ! The air tasted of water. She let down the window and the fat woman with the strawberries passed as if on purpose ; holding up the tray to her. " Nein, danke" said the little governess, looking at the big berries on their gleaming leaves. " Wie viel? " she asked as the fat woman moved away. " Two marks fifty, Fraulein." " Good gracious ! " She came in from the window and sat down in the corner, very sobered for a minute. Half a crown ! " H-o-o-o-o-o-e-e-e I " shrieked the train, gathering itself together to be off again. She hoped the old man wouldn't be left behind. Oh, it was daylight—everything was lovely if only she hadn't been so thirsty. Where was the old man—oh, here page 252he was—she dimpled at him as though he were an old accepted friend as he closed the door and, turning, took from under his cape a basket of the strawberries. " If Fraulein would honour me by accepting these . . ." " What for me ? " But she drew back and raised her hands as though he were about to put a wild little kitten on her lap.

" Certainly, for you," said the old man. " For myself it is twenty years since I was brave enough to eat strawberries." "Oh, thank you very much. Danke bestens" she stammered, " sie sind so sehr schön ! " " Eat them and see," said the old man looking pleased and friendly. " You won't have even one ? " " No, no, no." Timidly and charmingly her hand hovered. They were so big and juicy she had to take two bites to them—the juice ran all down her fingers—and it was while she munched the berries that she first thought of the old man as a grandfather. What a perfect grandfather he would make ! Just like one out of a book !

The sun came out, the pink clouds in the sky, the strawberry clouds were eaten by the blue. " Are they good ? " asked the old man. " As good as they look ? "

When she had eaten them she felt she had known him for years. She told him about Frau Arnholdt and how she had got the place. Did he know the Hotel Grunewald ? Frau Arnholdt would not arrive until the evening. He listened, listened until he knew as much about the affair as she did, until he page 253said—not looking at her—but smoothing the palms of his brown suède gloves together: " I wonder if you would let me show you a little of Munich to-day. Nothing much—but just perhaps a picture gallery and the Englischer Garten. It seems such a pity that you should have to spend the day at the hotel, and also a little uncomfortable ... in a strange place. Nicht wahr? You would be back there by the early afternoon or whenever you wish, of course, and you would give an old man a great deal of pleasure."

It was not until long after she had said " Yes "— because the moment she had said it and he had thanked her he began telling her about his travels in Turkey and attar of roses—that she wondered whether she had done wrong. After all, she really did not know him. But he was so old and he had been so very kind—not to mention the strawberries. . . . And she couldn't have explained the reason why she said " No," and it was her last day in a way, her last day to really enjoy herself in. " Was I wrong ? Was I ? " A drop of sunlight fell into her hands and lay there, warm and quivering. " If I might accompany you as far as the hotel," he suggested, " and call for you again at about ten o'clock." He took out his pocket-book and handed her a card. " Herr Regierungsrat. . . ." He had a title ! Well, it was bound to be all right! So after that the little governess gave herself up to the excitement of being really abroad, to looking out page 254and reading the foreign advertisement signs, to being told about the places they came to—having her attention and enjoyment looked after by the charming old grandfather—until they reached Munich and the Hauptbahnhof. " Porter ! Porter ! " He found her a porter, disposed of his own luggage in a few words, guided her through the bewildering crowd out of the station down the clean white steps into the white road to the hotel. He explained who she was to the manager as though all this had been bound to happen, and then for one moment her little hand lost itself in the big brown suède ones. " I will call for you at ten o'clock." He was gone. " This way, Fraulein," said a waiter, who had been dodging behind the manager's back, all eyes and ears for the strange couple. She followed him up two flights of stairs into a dark bedroom. He dashed down her dress-basket and pulled up a clattering, dusty blind. Ugh ! what an ugly, cold room—what enormous furniture ! Fancy spending the day in here ! " Is this the room Frau Arnholdt ordered ? " asked the little governess. The waiter had a curious way of staring as if there was something funny about her. He pursed up his lips about to whistle, and then changed his mind. " Gewiss" he said. Well, why didn't he go ? Why did he stare so ? " Gehen Sie," said the little governess, with frigid English simplicity. His little eyes, like currants, nearly popped out of his doughy cheeks. " Gehen Sie sofort," she repeated icily. At the page 255 door he turned. " And the gentleman," said he, " shall I show the gentleman upstairs when he comes ? "