Chapter 21

She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to
tell him that she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington
Gardens on the morning that he had appointed but that, as the girl
was fond of the place and took pleasure in watching the children
sailing their boats on the Round Pond, it would be easy to lead
her there. He showed her a photograph of the woman she would find
sitting on a particular bench, and he required she should look
at it long enough to commit the face to memory. It was that of a
quietly elegant woman with gentle eyes.

"She will call herself Lady Etynge," he said. "You are to remember
that you once taught her little girl in Paris. There must be no haste
and no mistakes. It be well for them to meet--by accident--several
times."

Later he aid to her:

"When Lady Etynge invites her to go to her house, you will, of
course, go with her. You will not stay. Lady Etynge will tell you
what to do."

In words, he did not involve himself by giving any hint of his
intentions. So far as expression went, he might have had none,
whatever. Her secret conclusion was that he knew, if he could see
the girl under propitious circumstances--at the house of a clever
and sympathetic acquaintance, he need have no shadow of a doubt
as to the result of his efforts to please her. He knew she was
a lonely, romantic creature, who had doubtless read sentimental
books and been allured by their heroes. She was, of course, just
ripe for young peerings into the land of love making. His had
been no peerings, thought the pale Hirsch sadly. What girl--or
woman--could resist the alluring demand of his drooping eyes, if
he chose to allow warmth to fill them? Thinking of it, she almost
gnashed her teeth. Did she not see how he would look, bending his
high head and murmuring to a woman who shook with joy under his
gaze? Had she not seen it in her own forlorn, hopeless dreams?

What did it matter if what the world calls disaster befell the
girl? Fraulein Hirsch would not have called it disaster. Any woman
would have been paid a thousand times over. His fancy might last
a few months. Perhaps he would take her to Berlin--or to some
lovely secret spot in the mountains where he could visit her.
What heaven--what heaven! She wept, hiding her face on her hot,
dry hands.

But it would not last long--and he would again think only of the
immense work--the august Machine, of which he was a mechanical
part--and he would be obliged to see and talk to her, Mathilde
Hirsch, having forgotten the rest. She could only hold herself
decently in check by telling herself again and again that it was
only natural that such things should come and go in his