His face, it is true, wore like a uniform the frowning fixity of the Prussian warrior. But it was such a rig-out as the Captain of Koepenich must have worn, and would take in nobody but a Teutonic squad. The true German seeks every day, by little acts of boorishness, to keep fresh this trenchant Prussian attitude; just as the German student, with his weekly routine of duels, keeps courage simmering in times of peace, that it may instantly boil up to war pitch at the least sign from his Emperor. He brushed his clothes in a sulky, vigorous way, like a silent, discontented domestic of a shabby, lonely master. He cleaned his glasses with the absorption and tenderness of the short-sighted. Next moment he was gazing through them, straddled on his flat Slav nose—brushing up whimsical moustaches over pouting mouth. This was done with two tiny ivory brushes taken out of a small leather case—present from a fiancée who had been alarmed that his moustaches showed an unpatriotic tendency to droop. This old sweetheart just then disagreeably occupied his mind. But he busied himself about further items of toilet with increased precision. To a knock he answered with careful “Come in.” He did not take his eyes from the glass, spotted blue tie being pinched into position. He watched with impassibility above and around his tie the entrance of a young woman. “Good morning. So you’re up already,” she said in French. He treated her as coolly as he had his thoughts. Appearing just then, she gave his manner towards the latter something human to play on, with relief. Imparting swanlike undulations to a short stout person, eye fixed quizzingly on Kreisler’s in the glass, she advanced. Her manner was one seldom sure of welcome, a little deprecatingly aggressive. She owned humorously a good-natured face with protruding eyes, gesticulated with, filling her silences with explosive significance. Brows always raised. A soul made after the image of injuries. A skin which would become easily blue in cold weather was matched with a taste in dress inveterately blue. The Pas de Calais had somehow produced her. Paris, shortly afterwards, had put the mark of its necessitous millions on a mean, lively child. “Are you going to work to-day?” came in a minute or two. “No,” he replied, putting his jacket on. “Do you want me to?” “It would be of certain use. But don’t put yourself out,” with grin tightening all the skin of her face, making it pink and bald and her eyes drunken. “I’m afraid I can’t.” Watched with sort of appreciative raillery, he got down on his knees and dragged a portmanteau from beneath the bed. “Susanna, what can I get on that?” he asked simply, as of an expert. “Ah, that’s where we are? You want to pawn this? I don’t know, I’m sure. Perhaps they’d give you fifteen francs. It’s good leather.” “Perhaps twenty?” he asked. “I must have them!” he clamoured of a sudden, with energy that astonished her.