“And you will go back all alone and try to give lessons?”
“I shall not only try, I shall do it,” I corrected him.
“And do you like the prospect?”
“If I can get enough money to live upon, I shall like it very much. It will be better than living at home and being bothered.”
“I will tell you what you should do before you begin your career,” said he, looking at me with an expression half wondering, half pitying.
“What? If you could tell me anything.”
“Preserve your voice, by all means, and get as much instruction as you can; but change all that waving hair, and make it into unobjectionable smooth bands of no particular color. Get a mask to wear over your face, which is too expressive; do something to your eyes to alter their—”
The expression then visible in the said eyes seemed to strike him, for he suddenly stopped, and with a slight laugh, said:
“Ach, was rede ich für dummes Zeug! Excuse me, mein Fräulein.”