“Yes,” answered Florence.
“You have study him pefore? You already play some?”
“Oh, yes; but I am sadly deficient, I am afraid, and have much to learn.”
“Ya, dat is very possible,” replied Mr. Zikoff, elevating that portion of his anatomy where his eyebrows should have been. “Dese American teachers are very thin—shallow, do you call it?”
“I understand what you mean,” said Florence, smiling. “You will please teach me whatever I ought to know, and I will try to be a faithful pupil.”
“You are not afraid to bractice, like dese many American girls?”
“No; I have nothing else to occupy my attention. I do not go in society.”
“Oh, I see!” Mr. Zikoff glanced significantly at her black dress; and then he added, in a prolonged tone, as if the thought had suddenly dawned upon him: “O-h-h, yes! You are die fraulein who has had much affliction. Ya, ya! I have heard somet’ings. Pardon my pad English. De language is sehr schwer—very difficult.”
A shadow came over Florence’s face as the tragedy was thus recalled, but she replied pleasantly, and soon afterward the music-lesson began.
Herr Zikoff had plenty of fault to find, and commented oddly on the deficiencies of his pupil. She was amused, and awakened to a new interest; and he, in spite of the emotions that thrilled him, enacted his role to perfection, as his thorough knowledge of music enabled him to do.