But one night, as I turned over the atlas looking for something else, I came on the map of Boravia and saw the city of Friedenburg set astride the great river, dominating the kingdom, a sentinel at the outposts of Western Europe. If Divine Right were not out of fashion, the key of that citadel should have been in the hand which ruled exercise-books for the Thistleton children. For a few moments after that I went on thinking about the nursery governess. IV So Fräulein--she soon came to be called just “Fräulein”--was not at my dinner-party; but two or three weeks later I had a little talk with her. I went up to the Manor one afternoon in October, seeking a game of croquet with Bessie Thistleton--such are our mild delights at Southam Parva--but found the whole family gone off to a Primrose League bazaar at Beechington. Only Fräulein was at home, said the parlour-maid; and Fräulein was visible in the garden, sitting under a tree, turning over the leaves of a big book. I used the privilege of a friend of the house, strolled out on to the lawn, and raised my hat to the--I mean to Fräulein. She smiled brightly and beckoned to me to come and sit by her; her words were beyond reproach, but her gestures were sometimes obstinately un-Fräuleinish, if I may so express myself. I sat down in the other deck-chair and said that it was very fine for so late in the year. She made no reply and, raising my eyes to her face, I found her looking at me with an unmistakable gleam of amusement. “Do you think this very funny?” she asked. “I think it’s deplorable,” I answered promptly. “It’s very simple. I owe Mr Thistleton two hundred pounds. I do this till I have worked it off.” “How many years?” “Several, monsieur.” “And after that?” “The children will grow up.” “Yes. And then?” “Mrs Thistleton will give Fräulein Friedenburg a good character.” “Meanwhile you work for nothing?” “No. For clothes, for food, to pay my debt.” “And how do you like it?” That question of mine, which sounds brutal, was inspired and, as I still believe, excused by the satirical amusement in her eyes; our previous meetings had shown me no such expression. Her answer to the question had its irony too. She turned over a dozen pages of the big book and came on a picture. She held the book out to me, saying-- “That’s my home.” I looked at the picture of her home, the great grim castle towering aloft on the river bank. A few centuries ago the Turks had fallen back beaten from before these giant walls. Then I glanced round Mrs Thistleton’s gentle trim old garden. “I think you’ve answered my question,” I said. She closed the book, with a shrug of her thin little shoulders, and sat silent for a moment. The oval of her face was certainly beautiful, and the thick masses of her hair were dark as night, or the inside of a dungeon in her castle of Friedenburg. (I liked to think of her having dungeons, though I really don’t know whether she had.) “And is it for ever?” I asked.