is better able to stand and wait than I am." Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, astonished. "You _are_ Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept you--come in." He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his writing-table. "Have a cigar?" "No." "No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," he said. "I care nothing for that." "What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about something." "I have been shamefully treated by a woman." "It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling. "I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze. Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you to go." "I will not go." "My dear Herr Klutz." "I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The woman is Miss Estcourt." "Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a lady." "She is a woman to all intents and purposes----" "Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station." "Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station may be, to a mere woman?" "I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been some mistake about the salary you are to receive?" "What salary?" "For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?" "Pah--the salary. Love does not look at salaries." "That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?" "For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written----" "One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech----" "The governess? _Ich danke._ It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me and led me on, and now, after calling me her _Lämmchen_, takes away her niece and shuts her door in my face----" "You have been drinking?" "Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his consciousness of the brandy. "Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my neighbour?" "Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the rôle of the cat. "A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why." "I have not come here to guess why about anything." "Oh, it is not very abstruse--the cat would be kicked by somebody, of course." "Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket."