We were on our way to the dining room, where the festivities were to be held. I stopped and turned a look of surprise upon him. “Don’t you know that the Knapfs are leaving? Did I neglect to mention that this is a farewell party for Herr and Frau Knapf? We are losing our home, and we have just one week in which to find another.” “But where will you go? And why did you not tell me this before?” “I haven’t an idea where I shall lay my poor old head. In the lap of the gods, probably, for I don’t know how I shall find the time to interview landladies and pack my belongings in seven short days. The book will have to suffer for it. Just when it was getting along so beautifully, too.” There was a dangerous tenderness in Von Gerhard’s eyes as he said: “Again you are a wanderer, eh—small one? That you, with your love of beautiful things, and your fastidiousness, should have to live in this way—in these boarding-houses, alone, with not even the comforts that should be yours. Ach, Kindchen, you were not made for that. You were intended for the home, with a husband, and kinder, and all that is truly worth while.” I swallowed a lump in my throat as I shrugged my shoulders. “Pooh! Any woman can have a husband and babies,” I retorted, wickedly. “But mighty few women can write a book. It’s a special curse.” “And you prefer this life—this existence, to the things that I offer you! You would endure these hardships rather than give up the nonsensical views which you entertain toward your—” “Please. We were not to talk of that. I am enduring no hardships. Since I have lived in this pretty town I have become a worshiper of the goddess Gemutlichkeit. Perhaps I shan’t find another home as dear to my heart as this has been, but at least I shan’t have to sleep on a park bench, and any one can tell you that park benches have long been the favored resting place of genius. There is Frau Nirlanger beckoning us. Now do stop scowling, and smile for the lady. I know you will get on beautifully with the aborigines.”