About the same hour Lorinser was sitting on the little leather sofa in Christiane's room, with his knees half drawn up on the seat, and his long arms stretched along the back, like a person who is making himself comfortable, because he does not intend to go very soon. Although it was already so dark that faces could scarcely be distinguished, no lamp stood on the little table. But from one of the windows in the front of the house gleamed a faint light, which frequently moved and fell upon the pale face of the man on the sofa, revealing the expression of eager expectation stamped upon the strongly marked features. Whenever the light flitted over Lorinser's countenance, the strange smile appeared on the mobile lips, and he lowered the eyes, which so long as it remained dark, followed every movement of the woman who, with her arms folded across her breast as usual, was pacing up and down the room. Suddenly she paused at the window, opened it a moment gasping for breath, and then turned toward the silent man on the sofa. "How people forget the flight of time when they are talking," she said. "I see it has grown dark. Excuse me, Herr Candidat, my hours are so regularly apportioned--" "You wish to send me away, Fräulein Christiane," he said making no preparation to move from his comfortable position. "I have really forgotten the true cause of my visit, in your musical revelations, which have afforded me a glimpse of depths hitherto unsuspected. So what answer can I give the baroness?" "Is any positive answer required?" she said. "Why should I have told you how I prize music, except to explain that I will never become a drawing room teacher, that I would rather starve than share in the universal sin of the jingling, bungling profanation of what I hold sacred?" "And yet you do not disdain to give lessons to a soubrette?" "How do you know?" "Because--well, because I've enquired about you. I must be able to answer for a person whom I recommend to houses like that of the baroness." "Very well. I will tell you why I take this frivolous creature; from a motive which will be perfectly obvious to you, as you too are interested in home missions:--to save a soul." "You want to transform this stage princess, who has already passed through so many hands, into a saint? You're jesting." Christiane laughed, a short, hollow laugh, utterly destitute of mirth.