“No.”
The woman hesitated. “You would be out during the day?”
“Oh, yes,” Olive said hopefully. “I shall be giving lessons.”
“Ah, well, perhaps— What would you pay?”
“I am poor, and I thought you would say as little as possible. I should be glad to help you in the house.”
“There is a good deal of mending,” the Frau said thoughtfully; “and you might clean your own room. Shall we say twenty-four lire weekly?”
The playing in the other room ceased, and a young man put his head in at the door. “Mutter,” he said, and then begged her pardon, but he did not go away.
Olive tried not to look at him, but he was staring at her and his eyes were extraordinarily blue. He was pale, and his wide brows and strong cleft chin reminded her of Botticelli’s steel-clad archangel. He wore his smooth fair hair rather long too, in the archangelic manner, he—
“Paid in advance,” Frau Heylmann said very sharply. Then she turned upon her son. “What do you want, Wilhelm?”
“Oh, I can wait,” he said easily.