Bertha held out her hand brutally, in a sort of spasm of will: said, in the voice of “finality,”

“Good-bye, Sorbet: good-bye!”

He did not take it. She left it there a moment, saying again, “Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, if you like,” he said at length. “But I see no reason why we should part in this manner. If Kreisler wouldn’t mind”—he looked after him—“we might go for a little walk. Or will you come and have an apéritif?”

[208]

“No, Sorbert, I’d rather not.—Let us say good-bye at once; will you?”

“My dear girl, don’t be so silly!” He took her arm and dragged her towards a café, the first on the boulevard they were approaching.

She hung back, prolonging the personal contact, yet pretending to be resisting it with wonder.

“I can’t, Sorbert. Je ne peux pas!” purring her lips out and rolling her eyes. She went to the café in the end. For some time conversation hung back.

“How is Fr?ulein Lipmann getting on?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.”

“Ah!”

Tarr felt he had five pieces to play. He had played one. The other four he toyed with in a lazy way.

“Van Bencke?”

“I have not seen her.”

That left three.

“How is Isolde?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seen the Kinderbachs?”

“One of them.”

“How is Clara?”

“Clara? She is quite well, I think.”

The solder for the pieces of this dialogue was a dreary grey matter that Bertha supplied. Their talk was an unnecessary column on the top of which she perched herself with glassy quietude.

She turned to him abruptly as though he had been hiding behind her, and tickling her neck with a piece of feather-grass.

“Why did you leave me, Sorbert?—Why did you leave me?”

He filled his pipe, and then said, feeling like a bad actor:

“I went away at that particular moment, as you know, because I had heard that Herr Kreisler?”

“Don’t speak to me about Kreisler—don’t mention his name, I beg you.—I hate that man.—Ugh!”

Genuine vehemence made Tarr have a look at her.[209] Of course she would say that. She was using too much genuineness, though, not to be rather flush of it for the moment.

“But I don’t see?”

“Don’t; don’t!” She sat up suddenly in her chair and shook her finger in his face. “If you mention Kreisler again, Sorbert, I shall hate you too! I especially pray you not to mention him.”

She collapsed, mouth drawn down at corners.

“As you like.” In insisting he would appear to be demanding an explanation. Any hint of exceptional claims on her confidence must be avoided.

“Why did you leave me?—You don’t know.—I have been mad ever since. One is as helpless as can be&md............