"Why should you sacrifice yourself?" she asked.
"It is no sacrifice to—ah—please, please! Put it down to the whim of an old man—what you will; but don't deny me this pleasure! Don't, please!"
His pleading look disarmed her and she gave up trying to dissuade him.
"Very well," she said. "It shall be as you wish."
She could not help liking him, she said to herself. His manner, at first a little embarrassing, now interested her strangely. He reminded her of a German nobleman she had met in Washington at the German Embassy. His grace, his bearing, his whole demeanour was noble and dignified in the extreme. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have regarded his offer to teach her little charge for nothing as a gross breach of politeness, but with him she did not feel angry in the least.
"It's curious," she said, "I came here with a good object in view; and you calmly appropriate my good intentions and make them your own, and what is still more strange I allow you to do so."
"Ah, don't say that!" still the tearful, pleading voice that moved her so.
"Yes, I allow you to do so," she persisted, and then she added, "Do you know, Herr Barwig, I like you, in spite of a strong temptation to be very angry with you?"
She had now moved around to the piano.
"You know," she said enthusiastically, "I love music and musical people. Some of the very greatest artists come to my father's musicales."