He moved aimlessly about the room. "Good? Must one always look for good in everything?—I can see quite well that from your point of view the whole thing must seem absurd. I expect nothing whatever from it, but I'm going to know her, and that's all about it."
Still in the same position, with folded arms, Madeleine observed him with unblinking eyes.
"And you won't bear me a grudge, if things go badly?—I mean if you are disappointed, or dissatisfied?"
He made a gesture of impatience.
"Yes, but I know Louise, and you don't."
He had picked up from the writing-table the photograph of a curate, and he stared at it as if he had no thought but to let the mild features stamp themselves on his mind. Madeleine's eyes continued to bore him through. At last, out of a silence, she said slowly: "Of course I can introduce you—it's done with a wave of the hand. But, as your friend, I think it only right to warn you what you must expect. For I can see you don't understand in the least, and are laying up a big disappointment for yourself. However, you shall have your way—if only to show you that I am right."
"Thanks, Madeleine—thanks awfully."
They settled down to read Schiller. But Maurice made one slip after another, and she let them pass uncorrected. She was annoyed with herself afresh, for having made too much of the matter, for having blown it up to a fictitious importance, when the wiser way would have been to treat it as of no consequence at all.
The next afternoon he arrived, with expectation in his face; but not on this day, nor the next, nor the next again, did she bring the subject up between them. On the fourth, however, as he was leaving, she said abruptly: "You must have patience for a little, Maurice. Louise has gone to Dresden."
"That's why the blinds are down," he exclaimed without thinking, then coloured furiously at his own words, and, to smooth them over, asked: "Why has she gone? For how long?"