“Of course! Three months ago, you mean?” Suzanne had taken a near and serious interest in Otto’s financial arrangements. She remembered dates well, apart from that. Otto did not proceed for some time. She stared quizzingly and patiently past the tip of his nose. “He then asked me to give up art. He told me of two posts in German firms that were vacant. That was her doing, the swine! One was a station-restaurant business.” “You refused!” “I didn’t reply at all.” In this his methods were very similar to his father’s. The elder Kreisler had repeatedly infuriated his son, calculating on such effect, by sending his allowance only when written for, and even then neglecting his appeal for several days. It came frequently wrapped up in bits of newspapers, and his letters of demand and expostulation were never answered. On two occasions forty marks and thirty marks respectively had been deducted, merely as an irritative measure. “Dîtes! Why don’t you write to your stepmother?” “Write to her? No, I won’t write to her.” “P’raps she wants you to. I should. Why don’t you write to her?” “I shall before—I shall some day!” “Before what?” “Oh, before⸺” Suzanne once more glimmered into the absurd distance. “He will send, I suppose?” “Now—? Yes, I suppose sooner or later it will turn up.” “If it didn’t what would you do? You think it’s your stepmother who does it? Why don’t you manage her? You are stupid. You must allow me to tell you that.” Kreisler knew the end was not far off; this might be it. So much the better! Kreisler’s student days—a lifetime in itself—had unfitted him, at the age of thirty-six, for practically anything. He had only lost one picture so far. This senseless solitary purchase depressed him whenever he thought of it. How dreary that cheque for four pounds ten was! Who could have bought it? It sold joylessly and fatally one day in an exhibition. CHAPTER II Nine months previously Kreisler had arrived in Paris at the Gare de Lyon, from Italy. He had left Rome, according to his account, because the Italian creditor is such a bad-tempered fellow, and he could never get any sleep after 8—or latterly 7.30—even, in the morning. “DEAR COLLEAGUE,—Expect me Thursday. I am at last quitting this wretched city. I hope that the room you mentioned is still free. Will come at once to your address. With many hearty greetings,—Yours, OTTO KREISLER.” He had dispatched this note before leaving to a Herr Ernst Volker.—For some time he stood on the Paris platform, ulster thrown back, smoking a lean cigar, with a straw stuck in it. He was glad to be in Paris. How busy the women, intent on travel, were! Groups of town-folk, not travellers, stood like people at a show. Each traveller was met by a phalanx of uninterested faces beyond the gangway.