None of the family ever referred to it. Even in his intimate talks with her mother, whom Gard now and then practiced his German upon as she was plying her needle, nothing was divulged. There was no young German coming to the house with regularity. Consequently, could it be love difficulties? Yet something was wrong. It lent respect to Elsa, threw enhancement about her.
Gard concluded that the roughness of the Bucher family life mortified her. It was often well-nigh outlandish. How could she have so ardently studied the beautiful in music and colors without realizing this?
But he had not been long enough in Germany to be advised that knowledge is not expected there to enter into the inner life. What one is has little in common with what one knows or can dexterously do. Study does not pass into character. The German, with all his acquirements, does not look for moral or esthetic effect upon the heart or soul.
German women esteem the strong fighter, the rugged accomplisher the boisterous enthusiast, among their men. Whether these are atheistic, immoral, boorish, cruel, are considerations of secondary importance. The daughters marry them with little hesitation. Men are men, supreme, to be adored. Women are to be tolerated, stepped on, sat upon. Man is the master, woman is the willing servant.
CHAPTER IX
A Journalist
GARD'S experience in perfecting himself in German met with another rebuff. Under the prompting of his parental friends in Villa Elsa he concluded at length to attend a course of lectures given by a celebrated professor who was, however, known to be of an exceptionally cantankerous disposition. Kirtley had become aware of the querulous restrictions and exactions attending the most peaceful German activities and made sure of his ground at the class room, whither he went one morning with encouraging expectations. He asked the janitor if the hearings were free and public. They were.
It was the usual amphitheater and Gard entered to find only a few regular students down in the front rows. He decided on a seat alone in the center. Herr Professor, be-spectacled, soon clambered up on the rostrum and squatted dumpily. Blear-eyed he scanned the place and blurted out: