Will leant over towards her for a moment. His heart beat hard. He laid one palm on the ground and rested on it as he looked at her. He was trembling all over. Surely, surely he must give way! For a moment he paused and debated; then he rose to his feet suddenly. “I think, Linnet,” he said, in a very serious voice, “for your sake—I think—we ought to go on and find your husband.” CHAPTER XXXIV AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE When Will, with fear and trembling, explained his plan half-an-hour later at the _châlet_ to Andreas Hausberger, that wise man of business, instead of flouting the idea, entered into his suggestion with the utmost alacrity. He knew Linnet was still very fond of Will Deverill—and, being a practical man, he was perfectly ready to make capital out of her fondness. It was good for trade; and whatever was good for trade appealed at once to Andreas on the tenderest point of his nature. He had perfect confidence in Linnet’s honour—as well, indeed, he might have; but if she chose to cherish an innocent sentimental attachment of the German sort—in point of fact, a _schwärmerei_—towards a young man she had known and liked before her marriage, that was no business of his; or, rather, it was just so much his business as it might help him to make a little more money out of her. Andreas Hausberger was a proud and self-respecting person, but his pride and his self-respect were neither of them touched by a purely romantic feeling on his young wife’s part towards a rising poet-composer who was anxious to write and score an opera to suit her. Indeed, he rather congratulated himself than otherwise on the thought that very few husbands of theatrical favourites had such very small cause for jealousy as he had. So he listened to Will’s humming and hawing apology with a quiet face of subdued amusement. What a bother about nothing! If Will wrote a piece for Linnet, why, of course, he’d write it excellently, and write it with most intimate knowledge of her voice, as well as with close sympathy for all its shades of feeling. Will knew her exact compass, her range, her capabilities; he knew also her weak points, her limitations, her dramatic failings. And Linnet, for her part, was sure to sing well whatever Will wrote for her—both because it was Will’s, and because it was suited to her voice and character. The idea was an excellent one; how absurd to make a fuss about it! “And he has some of it scored already, he says,” Linnet put in, half-trembling. “Let me see it,” Andreas exclaimed, in his authoritative way; and he skimmed it over carefully. “H’m, h’m . . . that’s not bad,” he muttered from time to time as he went along . . . “suits her style very well . . . not at all a weak close; fine opportunity for that clear upper G of hers; excellently considered piece—have you tried it over, Linnet? I should think it ought to do very nicely indeed for you.”